LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 






Shelf_._..,H57 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



GLIMPSES OF NORSELAND 




IN THE NiEKOFJORD. 



Glimpses of Norseland 



BV . 



HETTA M. HERVEY 







BOSTON 

Published for the Author by 

J. G. CUPPLES 



/ 



\ 



\ 



\ 



^ 



Copyright, 1889, 
By J. G. CVPPLES. 



All Rights Reserved. 



.w^'^ 



To My Hostess and Friend, 

s. or. B., 

IN AFFECTIONATE KPJJMEMBKANCK OF A SUMMER SPENT 
WITH HER IN 

"GAMLE NOKGE." 




^^- VX. 




PREFACE 



The account of Norway, and of the 
customs of its sturdy, honest people, given 
in this Httle volume, is the result of a two- 
months' sojourn in that northern land. 



X Preface. 

Although my journeyings were Hmited to 
the west coast and its fjords, yet they led 
me through some of the grandest and most 
enchanting scenery of the world, and af- 
forded me many a glimpse of the home- 
life of the peasants. Private hospitality is 
so much the same, the world over, among 
cultivated people, that no allusion has been 
made to this feature of our summer's sojourn 
in Norway, except in one or two instances 
of purely local character and interest. 

If these pages serve, in a slight measure, 
to refresh the memories of those who have 
been in the land of the Vikings, and also 
give to the general reader some conception 
of the information and benefit to be derived 
from a journey through its wonderful fjords, 
the object of the writer will be accomplished. 




ROWING TO THE SHORE. 



CONTENTS, 



PAGE 



CHAPTER I. 

The Start — Erratic Steamers — Rain — Sail to 
Bergen — Creation of- Norway — First Glimpse 
of the Weeping City — Difficulties of Landing 
— The National Bed ......... i 



xii Contents. 



CHAPTER 11. 

Bergen — A Rainy City — Scenes in the Fish 
Market — Peasants' Shoes — Quaint Shops — 
A Disdainful Maiden — Native Jewelry — 
Scenes in the Strand Gade — Picturesque Cos- 
tumes — A Drive with the Mayor — Fine 
Roads — License System — Beautiful Scenery 

— Leprosy — Hanseatic Museum — Schools — 

Ole Bull's Grave 13 

CPIAPTER IIL 

Up the Hardanger Fjord to Odde — Plan of the 
Tour — A Breakfast on the Steamer — Ubiqui- 
tous Cheese — Bread — Unique Tariff of Fares 

— Wonderful Scenery — Hardanger Peasants. 47 

CHAPTER IV. 

Odde — Sandven Vand — Difficulties with the 
Language — A Norwegian Saddle — Buarbrae 
Glacier — Buar Farm — Stolk jaerre — Laatefos 

— A Remarkable Horse Vocabulary — Kind- 
ness to Animals — Stores — Length of Days . 63 



Contents. xiii 



CHAPTER V. 

Odde to Vik — Norwegian Constitution — Legal 
Code — Eide — Norwegian Hospitality — Ride 
over the Mountains — Trouble with the Horse 

— National Proverb — System of Bag Weights 

— Roving Ponies — Ulvik — An Appetizing 
Meal— Row to Vik — Eagle Nest Huts — 
Ollendorfian Conversation — Vik 85 

CHAPTER VI. 

Visit to the Voringsfos — The Maabo Farm — • 
Methods of Conversation — Sure - Footed 
Ponies — Hoi Farm — Peasant Proprietorship 

— Norwegian IMusic — Confirmation Service 

— Old Church — Speeding the Parting Guest. 107 

CHAPTER Vn. 

Down the Sogne Fjord — Vik to Laerdalsoren — 
After-Dinner Coffee — Busy Little Eide — Nor- 
wegian Carriole — Posting System — An Acci- 
dent on the Road — Carrioling to Vossevangen 

— Norwegian Honesty — Posting to Gud- 



xlv Contents. 



PAGE 



vangen — Stalheimsklev — Naerodal — A Won- 
derful Gorge — Weird Scenery — Gudvangen 

— Naero Fjord — Laerdalsoren 125 

CHAPTER VIII. 
Laerdalsoren — A Splendid Highway — A Full 
Account of. Saeters — Hospitable Maidens 

— Bonder Etiquette — The Marvellous Bor- 
gund Church — Drawbacks of Riding — Hay- 
making — Rude System of Agriculture — 
Method of Storing Grain — Onto Maristuen. 145 

CHAPTER IX. 

The Return — An Amusing Character — Peas- 
ants* Generosity — Glimpse of a Bonder Farm 

— Food of the Bonder — A Curious Custom — 
Hospitality — Characteristics of the Bonder — 

J ack-of- All-Trades — Church of Laerdalsoren. 167 

CHAPTER X. 

The Sogne Fjord — Comparison of the Har- 
danger and Sogne Fjords — Awe-inspiring 
Scenery — An Immense Avalanche — Bale- 
strand — Bergen 187 



Contents. xv 



PAGE 



CHAPTER XL 

Railway Journey to Nisten — Life on the Farms 
— Lysekloster — Vegetation at the North — 
Hard Life of the Pastors — An Old Church — 
The Ruins — Harald Haarfagre's Wife — A 
Romantic Marriage — Fish Pudding — End of 
our Journey 197 



CHAPTER XH. 

A Beautiful Island — An Evening Fete — The 
Spring Dance — The Hailing . . . . . . 217 

CHAPTER XHL 

Norway's Attractions — Its Facilities for Travel- 
ling — What to Wear — Norwegian Currency 
— Advantages of the Posting System — Char 
acteristics of the Peasants — Conclusion . . 235 




STOLKJ/ERRE. 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS, 



In the N^rofjord Frontispiece 

En Route ....'....... Title-page 

Norwegian Road viii 

Leif Ericsson \_After Afiss Whitney's Statue'] . ix 
Rowing to the Shore xi 

TOLLEKNIV AND BiLT Xvi 

Stolkj/erre xvii 

Old Cream Bowl xviii 

Peasant Costumes 30 

Interior of S^eter 150 

Spring Dance 228 

A Remembrance 243 



CHAPTER I. 



THE START. 



GLIMPSES OF NORSELAND, 



CHAPTER I. 

The Start — Erratic Steamers — Rain ! — Sail to Ber- 
gen — Creation of Norway — First Glimpse of the 
"Weeping City" — Difficulties of Landing — The 
National Bed. 

HE Land of the Vik- 
ings ! What a halo 
of romance and le- 
gend wreathes its 
rocky shores ! To- 
day, as I look out 
over the broad ocean toward the sunrise, 
and let memory have its way, scenes and 




Glimpses of Norseland. 



events come back to me with a com- 
pleteness of joy that my Norway days, 
even though lengthened by the sunbeams 
of the midnight sun, were all too short 
to fully grasp. The eastern horizon line 
seems to fade away, and in its stead there 
rises before me visions of great, glittering 
arms of the sea, that stretch far inland, of 
gay 'hamlets rimmed with narrow emerald 
settings, of wild ravines, of countless catar- 
acts, of mighty cliffs, of grand glaciers, 
and of 

*' Bleak, tremendous hills 
Where Winter sits and sees the summer burn 
In valleys deeper than yon cloud is high." 

We had been spending the summer with 
a friend at her beautiful island home not 
far distant from Bergen, where we read the 



The Start. 



Sagas ; and pored over the histories of 
" Gamle Norge," until our souls were fired 
with a great desire to tread on historic 
ground; to see the valley where Frithiof 
won his Ingeborg; and to walk through 
the streets that Olaf the Silent built 
The desire is often father of the action 
as well as of the thought, and a favorable 
opportunity offering, one gloomy day saw 
us en route for Bergen and the far-famed 
fjords. The small steamers that ply in these 
arms of the sea for local traffic can never be 
depended on to arrive or depart at their 
advertised time, for in a land where daylight 
reigns nearly the whole twenty-four hours, 
there is always time enough and some to 
spare, and a delay of an hour or two causes 
no inconvenience to the leisurely going na- 



Glimpses oj Norscland, 



tives, though travellers from other countries 
have to learn to possess their souls in 
patience. In our case the little '' Bjorn " 
was an hour late, and it seemed as if Jupiter 
Pluvius had chosen the day of our departure 
to display his lordly powers, for it was rain- 
ing in sheets as we steamed out of the Lyso 
Fjord to take our devious way to Bergen. 

In and out we sailed, zigzagging from side 
to side, now^ seeming to steer straight for the 
towering hills, now gliding through a " field 
of boulders with the ocean let in." We 
seemed floating aimlessly, gray sky above 
us, and emotional gray sea beneath us. As 
we sat on the dripping deck, fortified with 
umbrellas and mackintoshes, and gazed on 
the gloomy landscape around us, this legend 
of the creation of Norway seemed very pro- 



Legend of Norway, 



bable : When God had finished making the 
world, so the story goes, and was resting 
from His labors, the Devil became envious 
of the wonderful new world and determined 
to destroy it. To accomplish his purpose 
he seized an immense jagged rock, and with 
all his strength hurled it downward toward 
the European continent with such force 
that it threatened to break the axis of the 
earth. But the Creator arrested it in its 
course, and, fixing it firmly just below the 
surface of the waters to the north of Eu- 
rope, scattered over its myriad jagged points 
the few handfuls of earth that He had left, 
not enough by any means to cover it de- 
cently ! 

As a proof of this tale, there were the 
islands all around us, hundreds in sight at 



Glimpses of Norseland, 



once, varying in size from the little rocky 
ones where the sea-birds have their nests, 
to the large green ones where the farmer 
builds his red-roofed cot and tills his hand's- 
breadth patch of grain. Everything else 
seemed colorless and shadowy through the 
rain, though now and then we could catch 
chaotic glimpses of snow-clad peaks gleam- 
ing out of black clouds, or huddles of small 
farmsteads on stretches of barren shore. 
No sound broke the monotonous dripping 
of the rain and the plashing of the waves 
but the occasional shrill whistle of the 
steamer or the cries of the sailors. For 
three hours we sailed in and out of the 
labyrinthian passages of this dim rocklet 
and islet world ; and the midnight bell was 
sounding when at last we began to descry, 



Approach to Bergen. 



through the mists, the scattering lights of 
Bergen. Slowly we steamed past the rows 
of old Dutch warehouses dimly looming 
through the fog, past black hulls around 
which hung the aroma of ages of fish, 
threading our way through the closely 
packed harbor, until, being unable to reach 
the wharf on account of the limited dock 
accommodations, we were obliged to stop 
alongside of two other steamers. 

To regain terra firma it was necessary to 
leap over the watery spaces that separated 
the boats. This was a feat which, in our 
drenched and benumbed condition, required 
considerable courage to attempt ; but with 
the assistance of the captain, who kindly 
guided our hesitating steps and encouraged 
us with unintelligible Norwegian words, we 



8 Giimpses of Morseland. 



accomplished it in safety. Usually there are 
no carriages so late as this on the wharf, 
but a friend had thoughtfully sent one to 
meet us, and we were soon at the hospitable 
Hotel Norge, drying our drenched garments 
and enjoying a hearty repast. 

Our rooms we found to be large and w^ell 
furnished; and here we had our first ex- 
perience of the national bed. Why these 
Northern people should have such a limited 
idea of a bed one cannot imagine ! They 
evidently believe in the truth of the adage : 
" Man wants but little here below, nor wants 
that little long ! " and agree with Alexander 
the Russian " that nothing is too little for a 
great man," for their beds are only five feet 
long, or even less, and narrow in proportion. 
It would seem that they were more suited 



National Bed. 



to the diminutive Lapps than the long- 
limbed Norsemen, but fashion here as else- 
where probably is more powerful than the 
consideration of comfort. Their make-up 
is as peculiar as their size. 

First, at the head of the usual mattress, 
there was a curious pillow arrangement in 
the shape of a wedge about two feet long, 
sloping down from a thickness of eight 
inches to one ; above this was placed a 
broad square pillow, and a loose sheet was 
flung over the whole; another pillow and 
loose blankets, and finally a fourth pillow, a 
coverlet, and an eiderdown puff ! 

As none of the coverings were tucked in, 
the bed looked in a decidedly incomplete 
state. 

We did not, however, delay long to ex- 



lo Glimpses of Norse land. 

amine the furnishings of the rooms, but 
soon, tired out with our long, rainy sail, 
sank to rest under the pile of coverings. 



CHAPTER 11. 



A DAY AT BERGEN. 




CHAPTER II. 

Bergen — A Rainy City — Scenes in the Fish Market — 
Peasants' Shoes — Quaint Shops — A Disdainful 
Maiden — Native Jewelry — Scenes in the Strand- 
GADE — Picturesque Costumes — Drive with the 
Mayor — Fine Roads — License System — Beautiful 
Scenery — Leprosy — Hanseatic Museum — Schools 
— Ole Bull's Grave. 

BERGEN, the town that good King 
Olaf Kyrre founded, is situated be- 
tween those two great arms of the sea, 
the Hardanger and the Sogne Fjords, 
and it is said to be built, hke ancient 
Rome, on seven hills. It is a quaint old 
town, with many narrow, steep streets 



14 Glimpses of Norseland. 

bordered with faded red houses, which 
are crowded so closely together that it 
seems as though a slight jostle of the top- 
most building would set them all a-sliding 
down the hill. Some of them date back to 
the time of the great Hanseatic League, 
and, with their sharp-peaked roofs and gable 
ends towards the street, remind one imme- 
diately of old German dwellings. 

The roofs are all red tiled ; the gable-ends 
red tiled also ; the diamond-paned windows 
open outward like shutters, and every win- 
dow-sill is filled with masses of sweet old- 
fashioned blossoms. None of the buildings 
seem to have the same frontage line ; some 
boldly elbow their neighbors back from the 
street, while they push their own steps 
away out on the pavement ; others bashfully 



Quaint Buildings. 15 



retreat as far as possible, and have their 
entrance in the basement. The angles and 
corners made by these freaky houses is the 
perfection of the beauty of irregularity, and 
this, when added to their soft old colors and 
irrepressible gables and ridges, gives them 
a most fascinating and picturesque appear- 
ance. 

Bergen was once the capital of Norway, 
and it is said to be still the commercial rival 
of Christiania. Although one is rather in- 
clined to doubt this statement, there can be 
no question but that it surpasses the new 
capital in the abundance of its fish and the 
quantity of its rain. It is said that the rain- 
fall here is six feet a year, and there were 
certainly enough umbrellas and waterproofs 
displayed in the stores of the city to warrant 



1 6 Glimpses of Norselaiid. 

the statement. As a matter of course in 
such a damp state of affairs, the umbrella 
plays an important part in the everyday life 
of the Bergenser, and its value is recognized 
even in that service that marks such an im- 
portant era in the lives of Norway's youth, 
the service of confirmation ; for the com- 
municant who has passed a satisfactory ex- 
amination, and listened to the usual exhor- 
tation, is not considered to be fully equipped 
for a proper entrance upon the battle of life 
until he has received, in addition to the Bible 
given by the pastor, the more material but 
necessary gift of an umbrella to shield it on 
his way to and from church. 

However large the trade in umbrellas 
may be, it is exceeded by the trafific in fish. 
Off of, as well as on, fish do the Norwe- 



Fisheries. 1 7 



gians live, and if Catholicism should pass 
away, Norway would be reduced to abject 
poverty, for every year enormous quantities 
of its cod and herring are sent to the south- 
ern parts of Europe. The great majority 
of the inhabitants of the coast are fishermen 
and sailors, and this accounts for the fact 
that many of their tales possess a strong 
flavor of the salt sea and its changing 
moods, and that their favorite heroes are 
found among the dauntless Vikings. The 
cod fishermen usually start out in February, 
or sometimes as early as January, for the 
grounds off the Lofoden Isles, where, until 
March, it is estimated there are fully thirty- 
five hundred boats, employing upwards of 
twenty thousand sailors, engaged in fishing. 
The men live in huts along the shores of 



1 8 Glimpses of Norseland, 

the islands, and the business is carried on 
under the supervision of the Government, 
v^hich uses every precaution to render this 
dangerous occupation comparatively safe. 
In stormy weather the fishermen are pro- 
hibited under penalty of a fine from ventur- 
ing out to the fishing grounds to set their 
nets, and even in suitable weather they are 
obliged to wait until the requisite signal for 
setting out is displayed by the officers in 
charge. Resident physicians are appointed 
each year, and trading vessels from the 
mainland supply them with the necessary 
provisions. But despite the utmost care 
and vigilance this business can never be 
anything but dangerous, and few are the 
families who have not lost some dear ones 
in fearful hand-to-hand conflicts with black 



Fisheries. 1 9 



fogs, short, raging cross seas, and roaring 
northwesters. These codfish are such stu- 
pid, conservative fellows, swimming year 
after year in the same waters, off the same 
old shores, and greedily nibbling the same 
tempting kinds of bait, that their name has 
become a synonym for stupidity, and instead 
of deriding a man by calling him a goose, 
the Norwegian stigmatizes him as a Torsk 
or cod ! 

The herring, Norway's other important 
export, are more erratic in their shining 
movements, and as soon as the glittering 
shoal makes it appearance in a favorable 
place, word is sent to the waiting fishermen, 
whose prosperity depends upon the catch of 
these elusive fish. The methods used for 
discovering the presence of the herring are 



20 Glimpses of Norseland, 

very ingenious. In the daytime a sort of 
submarine telescope, four or five feet in 
length, not unlike an enormous speaking- 
trumpet in form, with the broader end 
glazed, and the other large enough to cover 
the face, is placed under the water, and the 
man in charge can easily discover whether 
the piscatorial prizes have arrived. At 
night the simple contrivance of a piece of 
lead attached to a fine cord and let down 
into the sea is all that is necessary, for if 
the shoals are large they may be felt jost- 
ling against the lead. It is a most pictur- 
esque sight to see \}^^jagts come home after 
a successful season, with pennons gayly 
streaming and decks piled high with finny 
prizes ! As they glide up to the wharf, doz- 
ens of friendly hands are in readiness to 



Fish-Market Scenes. 21 



catch the hawsers, while many a woman's 
face is bathed in happy tears as she pHes 
her weather-beaten husband or lover with 
eager questions. 

It was our good luck to be present on 
one of the market days at the Torv or fish- 
market. It w^as not a building but an 
open market-place on the quays, where the 
market-men were sailors and the stalls were 
fishing-boats. The customers were for the 
most part women, who came in crowds, 
carrying tin scuttles on their arms in which 
to place their purchases. The water-spaces 
between the ships were packed closely with 
little, darting boats filled with a wriggling 
mass of mackerel, herring, salmon, eels, and 
other small fish, which the skippers offered 
for sale, while some of the vendors sold their 



2 2 Glimpses of Norseland, 

squirming, jumping beauties from tubs on 
the quays. In boat and on shore was ges- 
ticulating, shouting, and scolding. A house- 
wife would plunge her hand into one of the 
tubs and draw out a struggling fish ; if it 
did not please her or the price was too high, 
she would throw it back with a splash and 
demand another. 

Whenever a new boat made its appear- 
ance there would be a rush in that direction 
and a renewed clamor of voices. 

Besides the tubs of fish, there wxre tables 
of vegetables, fruit, and flowers, presided over 
by dames with keen eyes and brawny arms. 

Every woman that had a pint of berries, 
a string of onions, or a bunch of flowers, 
tried to sell it, and while waiting for a cus- 
tomer her busy hands were occupied in 



Antique Articles. . 23 

patching the ever-yawning stockings or 
knitting new ones. 

And no wonder ! 

The peasants wear wooden shoes, hol- 
lowed out of a single piece of wood, with 
no heel and only a little toe ; how it is pos- 
sible ever to have a whole stocking is a 
mystery ! 

Leaving the fish-market we strolled down 
the quaint Strandgade, the " Regent Street " 
of Bergen. Some of the odd stores that 
bordered it were raised a little above the 
level of the street, and had below them other 
rather inferior ones. The shops were filled 
with antique articles, or what purported to 
be antique ; but, after several months of 
travelling, the observing woman 'comes to 
the conclusion that some of the most an- 



24 Glimpses of Norseland. 

cient in appearance are manufactured in 
this nineteenth century of ours : — 

Quaint, heav)^ silver spoons with large 
bowls and short handles ; silver drinking 
cups, their rims ornamented with dangling 
disks ; old beakers shaped and colored like 
hens ; gay, red trunks, like those we saw 
in every peasant's home ; fascinating little 
luncheon boxes called tines, with some 
legend like : " Leave me empty," painted on 
them, and gayly colored bowls which seemed 
to have drifted from Algiers. What a 
wealth of jewelry the old Norse people wore ! 
Heavy silver rings, massive silver bracelets, 
and dozens of silver buttons ; one finds them 
in all the stores, although the peasants now 
know their value and part with them only 
when compelled to do so by necessity. A 



Wealthy Peasants. ^5 

friend of mine, whose travelling suit was 
trimmed with steel buttons, was at one 
time travelling in Gudbransdal, the richest 
district of Norway, and had there a rather 
amusing encounter with a Norsk girl, at 
whose simple home she had stopped in 
order to rest the weary post-horses. As she 
waited in the living room and turned over 
a book of loose photographs, mentally re- 
marking on the simplicity of these people, 
who evidently believed everyone to be as 
honest, as themselves, her attention was at- 
tracted by the admiring gaze and exclama- 
tions of the landlady and her daughters, who 
had formed a circle about her and were fur- 
tively examining the bright buttons of her 
dress. 

** These be silver?" one of the girls at 



26 Glimpses of N or s eland. 

last had courage to ask. " O no/' said the 
lady, " those are steel.'' At this the girl 
shrugged her shoulders disdainfully, and, 
after explaining to the others what my 
friend felt to be a humiliating fact, she left 
the room and returned with a red bodice 
which was profusely ornamented w^ith gen- 
uine silver buttons. 

There are many rich peasants who pre- 
serve a primitive simplicity in their manners 
and customs; and no one stopping at this 
station would have suspected that the family 
was either wealthy or of ancient lineage, 
but such was the fact, for Herr Toftemoen 
is a lineal descendant of the great Harold 
Haarfager, the first king of Norway, and is 
the possessor of a wonderful service of sil- 
ver. For centuries it has been the custom 



Wealthy Peasaizis, ^7 



of the Toftemoens that the son who in- 
herited the farm should make with his own 
hands a silver drinking-cup, and no ancient 
coat-of-arms could be so impressive as this 
precious heirloom of a hundred and fifty 
battered and dented beakers. When the 
present king passed through Gudbransdal on 
his way to Trondhjem, it is said that he was 
invited to sup at this station by the bonder, 
who informed him that it was unnecessary 
to unpack his silver, for there was enough 
in the house for him and all his retainers ; 
and then when the repast was served, ignor- 
ing the present difference in rank, the sturdy 
old farmer, with the independent spirit of 
his ancestors, quietly sat down beside his 
royal guest. What a picture for a poet or a 
painter to immortalize ; two descendants of 



28 Glimpses of Morseland. 

kings, one in royal apparel, the other in 
plain homespun, supping together in a 
low, smoke-stained room, with the flickering 
flames of the hearth-fire touching brightly 
the faded embroideries that adorn the walls 
and playing among the rows of silver 
beakers from which many a legendary old 
hero quaffed mighty draughts ! But leaving 
fancies and returning to our subject of 
jewelry: — 

The modern silver ornaments cannot be 
compared with the old in artistic workman- 
ship, but they preserve, in a measure, the old- 
time style and its characteristic feature of 
hanging dangling disks and crosses in every 
available space. Almost all of the new 
jewelry has more or less of filigree ornamen- 
tation, an art that was originally learned 



Scenes on the Strandgade. 29 

from two Genoese who wandered up to 
Trondhjem ; but thougli the Norwegian fiU- 
gree is of artistic design and good workman- 
ship it hardly equals that made in South- 
ern Europe. As a whole the national 
jewelry is odd and interesting, but not par- 
ticularly desirable for personal wear. We, 
however, like all travellers, bought a num- 
ber of characteristic pieces as souvenirs. 

This Strandgade on a market-day is a 
most fascinating place ! Groups of peasants 
pass and repass. Here a group from the 
Hardanger Fjord, the women with plain dark 
skirts, full-sleeved cotton waists, and gay 
bodices ; the men looking like sailors with 
their wide trousers and slouch hats. There, 
some from the Tellemark district, the men 
with knee-breeches and open, rolling shirt 



30 



Glimpses of Norseland. 



collars, the women with scarlet petticoats 
and black jackets; and there, some men 
from the Saeterdal, easily recognized by 




their extreme height and their peculiar cos- 
tume, which consists of trousers reaching 



A Drive about Bergen, 31 



from the ankle to the armpit, above which is 
a short vest much ornamented with silver 
buttons. The women from this district 
wear very short skirts showing their bright 
garters, and are evidently proud of their 
shapely limbs. 

Now a pastor in a long black gown and 
high white ruff hurries by ; now a wrinkled 
dame bending under a load of juniper 
boughs; there, goes a peasant trudging 
beside a little cart piled high with sacks of 
vegetables ; here, a sturdy girl clatters past, 
firkins of butter swinging from the wooden 
yoke on her shoulders. So they come and 
go, and we would fain have spent the day 
in watchincr them if we had not had the 
pleasure of a drive before us ; but the 
Mayor, whose invitation we had previously 



32 Glimpses of Norseland, 



accepted, arrived, and we speedily took our 
seats in his roomy barouche, which the 
sturdy little ponies seemed to find little 
trouble in drawing, and quickly bowled 
away from the business streets. 

Our way, which led up the slopes of a 
mighty hill called the Floifjeld, was a mar- 
vel of engineering. Five great bends the 
road made, and even then the way was so 
steep that we were obliged to leave the 
carriage and walk, in order to rest the 
horses. Truly these Norwegians vie with 
the Swiss in their wonderful road-building ! 
" The roads are made in this way," said the 
Mayor. '' First a foundation of heavy boul- 
ders, then great slabs of granite, and lastly, 
a thick covering of fine gravel. The sides 
are of solid masonry and the edges are pro- 



Liquor Traffic. 33 

tected as you see by pointed rocks set at 
regular intervals. You were also asking 
why this road was called the Drammens 
Vei : it was so called from the fact that it 
was built from the profits received from the 
sale of liquor. Bergen, like most of the Nor- 
wegian cities, now controls the liquor traffic 
herself, having but one place of sale and 
allowing that only to be open during certain 
hours. No liquor can be drunk on the pre- 
miseSj and not less than a bottle is sold at a 
thne. Wine may be ordered at the hotels 
except on fete days or holidays, but then it 
is impossible to procure it anywhere. Since 
this system has been adopted drunkenness 
has greatly decreased in Norway." As he 
finished we reached the summit of the hill, 
and below us, bathed in the light of the 



34 Glimpses of Norseland. 

summer sun, lay the beautiful quaint city, 
its gay-colored houses with their red-tiled 
roofs standing out sharply against the 
masses of gray rock that rose hundreds of 
feet behind them. 

The harbor was filled with craft; the 
jagts with their high prows and firm square 
sails reminding one of the Long Serpent of 
Olaf and the days of the Vikings. Here 
and there glittered broad blue bays broken 
by green curving promontories ; tiers of blue 
and gray hills towered majestically from the 
sunlit fjord ; snowy peaks gleamed in the 
purple distance ; islands, islands everywhere, 
hundreds in sight at once ! 

As soon as we began to descend the hill, 
however, the trees intercepted the beautiful 
view, and at the foot we came upon the 



Lepers HospitaL 35 

grounds and buildings of the Lepers' Hos- 
pital. This dreadful disease is the scourge 
of Norway, and the most earnest and scien- 
tific efforts so far have proved unavailing 
in eradicating it. There are five hospitals 
devoted to lepers in Norway, and all those 
families in which the disease has declared 
itself are closely watched by the Govern- 
ment, none of the members beincr allowed 
to marry, for though not generally consid- 
ered to be contagious, there is no doubt 
but that leprosy is hereditary. The pa- 
tients mostly come from the fishing dis- 
tricts, where the disease is caused by expos- 
ure to wet and cold, a too exclusive use of 
fish food, and a lack of fruits and vegetables. 
The physicians say that the number of 
lepers is decreasing, but, alas, there are still 



36 Glimpses of Norscland. 

fully fifteen hundred of the miserable beings 
in the country ! 

We drew a breath of relief as we passed 
the gloomy buildings and rolled along the 
broad King Oscars Gade, w^iere are the 
homes of the prosperous merchants of Ber- 
gen. A few moments more and we drew 
rein before the pleasant summer home of 
our host. As soon as we entered, a trig 
little maiden in peasant costume, her fair 
hair braided with ribbons and wound about 
her head, hastened in, bearing a silver salver 
on which were bottles of wine and lemonade 
and a dish of sweet cakes. It is the eti- 
quette in Norway to offer these refresh- 
ments whenever a friend calls, and also to 
greet them with retrospective thanks in the 
phrase " Tak for sidst '' (Thanks for the last 



A Pleasant Call, 37 

time we met). We ate our cakes and sipped 
our wine and lemonade sitting on the broad 
piazza which overlooked the glittering fjord, 
while our host told us how he had saved 
two youths from drowning the day be- 
fore. 

As he described the swift run from the 
house, the quick row to the spot where they 
had sunk, and the rescue, his eyes sparkled 
and his face glowed with feeling ; one would 
have thought him an emotional Italian 
rather than a dweller of the cold North. 
The Norwegian, despite his prudence and 
reserve, has a strong vein of romance in 
his nature, which his rock-ribbed surround- 
ino'S serve to cfuard rather than crush. 

With the cordial '' Tak for idag" (Thanks 
for to-day) of our hostess ringing in our ears 



o 



8 Glimpses of Norseland. 



we left the house and began our drive back 
to the hotel. It was about noon, and the 
sidewalks were crowded with school children 
returning home. 

Each child had a little knapsack full of 
books on his back and in his hand the usual 
umbrella. " We are very proud of our 
schools/' said a Norwegian gentleman to me ; 
and well they may be. Besides receiving 
thorough instruction in the usual branches, 
the boys are required to practise athletic 
and military exercises, in order to prepare 
them for the army, in which every Nor- 
wegian youth is required to serve a certain 
length of time. 

It is probably owing to the exercises in 
these schools that the Norwegian men are 
so erect and well developed. 



Hanseatic Miiscitin, 39 

Then the girls have a large industrial 
school where they are taught all the arts 
that will fit them to be good housewives. 
Sewing, darning, knitting, and so forth 
occupy one-half of their school hours, and 
studies the other half. 

This school has over five hundred pupils, 
and their work is so well done that there is. 
always a demand for it if they care to sell. 

As a few moments remained before it was 
necessary for us to return to the hotel, vv^e 
determined to spend them in the Hanseatic 
Museum. 

A quaint old place it was, in one of the 
buildings of the Hanseatic League. The 
arrangements and furniture of the rooms 
retained their old Hanseatic character, and 
there were many curious relics of the period 



40 Glimpses of Norselaiid. 

when that formidable German trading com- 
pany ruled Bergen and monopolized the 
commerce of Northern Europe. Off of 
one of the rooms was a closet which had 
originally been a bedchamber, though it 
was so small that it hardly contained the 
usual impossible bed and a tiny stool. We 
noticed that on the side next to the hall, 
about on a level with the bedstead, was 
a curious square aperture of no apparent 
use. On inquiry, however, we learned that 
it was constructed for a specific purpose. 
It seems that when the League was formed, 
all the officers were sworn to celibacy, and 
it was determined that no woman should 
penetrate into the sacred precincts of their 
buildings farther than the hall, for fear that 
they might intermarry with the susceptible 



Hanscatic Afuseum. 41 



Germans and so alienate them from their 
vows. But although the masculine mind 
seemed to have been capable of grasping 
the mysteries of cooking, the art of bed- 
making was evidently too much for their 
comprehension, for these apertures were 
made in order that through them the maids 
might perform this office. None but a 
Norwegian bed could have been made in 
this way, for the openings were hardly large 
enough for the admittance of both arms at 
once ! 

The pots, pans, and kettles used in the 
culinary department were carefully pre- 
served, and among them we noticed a brass 
urn so heavy that we could hardly lift it 
with both hands. "Ah!" said the old 
guide, in German, a language spoken by 



42 Glimpses of Norseland. 

nearly all the better-educated Norwegians, 
"how we have degenerated since the time of 
the League ; we never perform our ablutions 
in clean water now." After enjoying for 
a time our natural surprise, he explained 
that standing water can never be so pure as 
running water, and that we now cleanse our 
hands in basins of water, while the ancients 
laved theirs in streams poured from these 
urns. Here was what purported to be an 
accurate diagram of Noah's Ark, with the 
building-plans carefully drawn in case of 
there being any necessity of constructing 
another ! there a pile of heavy silver rings or- 
namented with quaint devices. Old buckles, 
brooches, and chains, silver beakers dented 
and broken from the wassails of genera- 
tions, swords battered and stained in mem- 



Ole BicWs Grave. 43 

orable battles, — all these and many more 
curious objects of interest the quaint mu- 
seum possessed; but we could give them 
only a cursory glance, for our plans necessi- 
tated an early return to the hotel. In the 
afternoon we visited the old graveyard 
where rests the dust of one of Norway's 
greatest sons, Ole Bull. Interments in this 
cemetery had been forbidden for some time 
previous to the death of the violinist, but 
his native city claimed that he should be 
buried within its limits and offered the cen- 
tral spot of the old graveyard for his last 
resting-place, to be permanently reserved 
when all the other graves, in the course of 
time, should be levelled and the ground con- 
verted to a park. Several shadowy paths 
lead up to the spot, through whose vistas 



44 Glimpses of Norseland. 

one obtains glimpses of the blue, wood- 
framed lake, and a grand offlook toward the. 
everlasting hills. The monument is a mas- 
sive bronze vase, six feet in height, orna- 
mented only by the inscription and the 
tangles of ivy that grow at its base and 
clasp its sides with green, leafy arms. 

Seen as we saw it in the golden light of 
cross sunbeams, it stood a fitting memorial 
to the artist who slept beneath, "a man 
who had ever loved his Gamle Norge and 
ever will be beloved of her." 



CHAPTER III. 



UP THE HARDANGER EJORD TO 
ODDE. 




CHAPTER III. 

Up the Hardanger Fjord to Odde — Plan of the Tour 
— A Breakfast on the Steamer — Bread — UBiqyi- 
Tous Cheese — Unic:^je Tariff of Fares — Wonder- 
ful Scenery — Hardanger Peasants. 

THE best things in this life seem 
always snatched on chances/' says 
one writer, and so we found it in our trip 
through the fjords. As we looked over our 
guide-books and mapped out our plans, it 
was by mere chance that we decided on a 
route which afterwards we learned was the 
only one on which we could have seen so 



48 Glimpses of Norseland. 



many objects of interest in the short space 
of ten days. 

It led us from Bergen up the Hardanger 
Fjord to Odde, near which place are many 
noted waterfalls and glaciers. 

By steamer again to Eide ; over the 
mountains to Ulrik ; across the Ulrik's 
Fjord to Vik and the famous Voringfos ; 
back to Eide, and by posting routes to 
Vossevangen and Gudvangen ; up the 
Sogne Fjord to Laerdalsoren; to Borgund 
Church and Maristuen ; back to Laerdals- 
oren and through the Sogne Fjord to Ber- 
gen ; by train and carriole to Lysekloster, 
and by row-boat back to the island of Lyso. 
A wild thing it would seem to many, for 
two lone women, without even a "diamond 
edition " knowledge of the Norwegian Ian- 



National Dishes, 49 

guage, to make a tour through a sparsely 
settled country, where steamers come and 
go at their own sweet will, bound by no 
laws of time, and accommodations are by 
no means of the best. But what would be 
an utter impossibility in any other country 
under the sun, is in this honest land of the 
North both possible and easy if one has 
the courage to attempt it. 

It was a lovely day in July when our 
good ship " Hardangeren " left the populous 
shores of Bergen and steamed through the 
channels of a northern Archipelago toward 
the mouth of the Hardanger Fjord. Hardly 
had we started, when the gong sounded for 
breakfast ; and, as it was our first distinctly 
national meal, we examined with much 
interest the many odd dishes that were 



50 Glimpses of Norseland. 

arranged up and down the centre of the 
coarse table-cloth. 

There were ten kinds of cheese, of all 
ages and of all colors, nine kinds of long 
sausages, smoked reindeer tongues, sardines, 
and smoked raw salmon. This collection, 
which probably took the place of the Swe- 
dish smorgas or appetizer, had an aged look, 
as though it had made many voyages on 
the steamer, and we turned from it with 
delight to the savory, hot dish which the 
steward set before us. It was a kind of 
meat ball, so he told us, made of the best 
beef chopped finely and mixed with suet, 
eggs, milk, cracker crumbs, and spice. The 
hash was then moulded into balls and fried 
in butter. The lax or salmon was also very 
palatable ; but as it was served to us in 



Varieties of Cheese. 51 

some form or other three times a day during 
our whole trip, it soon lost its charms. 

The Norwegians have the same proverb 
for cheese that we have for fruit : " Gold 
in the morning; silver at noon/' and they 
live up to it religiously. The favorite 
cheese is mysost or goat's cheese. It is 
made from the whey, which is boiled till all 
the water has been evaporated and it be- 
comes a dark brown color, then it is taken 
from the pot and moulded into bricks 
weighing from three to four pounds each. 
Another popular cheese is the gammel ost, 
a fermented cheese made from sour skim 
milk, and of so strong an odor that only 
a few slices are ever placed on the table 
at once. Then there was the kummiii ost, 
and the ptilt ost, and many other osts too 



52 Glimpses of Norseland. 

numerous to describe. The bread was prin- 
cipally made of rye or barley, although 
there were some rolls of white bread called 
kringlers ; these, however, are considered 
great delicacies, and the usual bread we 
found to be kaverings, or rye biscuits, 
which had been dried in a very hot oven 
until they became brittle. All the Norwe- 
gian dishes are highly spiced, and as cream 
enters largely into their composition, they 
have a rich, sweet flavor. 

There is one custom that obtains on these 
steamers which would be abused in any 
country but Norway: it is the custom of 
paying only one and a half fares where a 
parent and child or a husband and wife 
travel together. Whether this custom was 
instituted to induce families to travel to- 



Rcdiiced Fares. 53 



gether, or to lighten the expenses of a 
mafried man, I do not know, but it is only 
one of the many proofs that everywhere 
abound of the Norwegian's faith in his 
fellow-man. 

After seeing our simple luggage, which 
consisted of two bags and a parcel, safely 
placed in the upper cabin, we went on deck, 
and, with phrase-books in hand, tried to fill 
our empty minds with Ollendorfic Norwe- 
gian. A sudden exclamation from my com- 
panion caused me to lift my eyes from 
the book : *' What do we care," she ex- 
claimed impatiently, " whether the little boy 
has eaten the apple of his father or not, 
when we have such scenery around us ? " 
And from that time till we reached Odde 
the phrase-book was relegated to the bag, 



54 Glimpses of Norseland. 



while we drank in the beauties of the 
enchanting scenery. 

Words are not adequate to describe it — 
this lovely fjord. As I write there comes 
before me a series of ever-changing, ever- 
meltinsf views. 

Grand old hills rise on either side of an 
opaline fjord, their tops capped with fields 
of eternal snow, while at their feet nestle 
little hamlets whose red-tiled roofs stand 
out sharply against a background of sombre 
firs. Mountain streams galore; some like 
beams of sunlight sparkle dowm toward the 
glittering fjord; some, like ravelled clouds, 
seem only an extension of the mighty gla- 
ciers far up in the sky ; and some, like mad 
rivers jumping and roaring, plunge down 
steep, serrated precipices, their devious 



Loveliest of all the Fjords. 55 

paths being marked by lines of vivid ver- 
dure. 

The fjord, ever changing, ever reflecting 
the elusive tints of the foliage ; translucent 
greens and yellows in the narrows, glittering 
blue in the openings. 

Little huts, like eagle-nests perched on 
dizzy heights ; little bobbing boats with 
loads of passengers dressed in character- 
istic costumes ; — everything strange, fasci- 
nating, dreamlike. 

As the great sun set, a feeling of solem- 
nity came over us ; the mountains, which 
had glowed with opal and ruby tints, grad- 
ually faded into a deepening purple; the 
tremulous water reflected the dark blue of 
the sky; one by one the cold gleaming stars 
appeared ; stern and dark loomed the bleak. 



56 Glimpses of Norseland, 

tremendous hills, their blackness broken 
only by great belts of sparkling snow. 

O Hardanger! with your fjords and fjelds, 
your glaciers and cataracts, well may you be 
the theme of poet and painter forever ! 

It was with a feelino: of orratitude that we 
arose the next morning from our comfort- 
able berths in the little upper cabin that 
a friend had engaged for us, and looked 
into the crowded ladies' saloon, where, on 
lounges, the less fortunate had been obliged 
to spend the night. " Odde at twelve, and 
then the Buarbrae Glacier and the Laate- 
fos," said we gleefully, as we gained the 
deck. It was strange that, like Dickens's 
Oliver Twist, we always wanted more ; the 
feast of yesterday had been most generous, 
yet with eager interest we anticipated the 



Amphibiotts Norzvcgia7is, 57 

glories of the morrow. An hour before we 
reached our destination we stopped off a 
Httle hamlet and took on board a boat-load 
of peasants. The steamers seldom come 
alongside the wharves at the small stations, 
but simply slow down and wait for the 
passengers to be rowed out to them. 

The Norwegians are as much at home on 
the water as on the land ; they think noth- 
ing of leaping from one rocking boat to 
another; and men, women, and children in 
loading and unloading their small boats 
fearlessly stand, jump, and move about with 
only a board between them and a fjord 
hundreds of feet deep. What makes their 
confidence the more remarkable is the fact 
that hardly any of them know how to swim. 

After having seen their dexterous man- 



58 Glimpses of N'orseland. 

oeuvres we were more inclined to put cre- 
dence in that feat of Olaf Trygveson chron- 
icled by old Pontoppidan in the words : 
" He was so nimble that he could walk 
outside of a boat upon the oars while the 
men were rowing.'' 

These peasants were all dressed in the 
Hardanger costume, which is one of the 
most picturesque in Norway. It consists 
of a dark skirt bordered with bright velvet 
and tinsel, a long white apron finely worked, 
a bright red bodice cut low in the back and 
front and showing the full sleeved white 
shirt, a heavily beaded breastplate and 
dangling silver ornaments. The married 
women wear a peculiar winged headdress 
of finely crimped cambric that is fastened 
closely around their faces and rolled over a 



Costumes of Har danger Women. 59 

wooden frame. It flares broadly at the 
sides and then hangs down the back in 
a long point. The girls wear their hair 
braided with ribbons, and sometimes a co- 
quettish little beaded cap rests on their 
flaxen heads. Each one carried a gayly 
colored tine in her hand, and they were 
evidently bound on a day's pleasuring, for 
their blue eyes sparkled and their sun- 
burned faces were wreathed in smiles. 
" Farvel ! farvel ! " they cried to the sturdy 
boatmen who had brought them to the 
steamer, and who now stood upright on the 
thwarts of their boats waving adieus, '' Paa 
gjenseyn " (Till we meet again), and then 
seating themselves in a gossipy circle 
they carefully spread out their gowns and 
took from their pockets the ever-present 



6o Glimpses of Norseland. 

knitting, and their bright needles clicked 
merrily until we reached Odde. 

" And one was singing the ancient rune 
Of Brynhilda's love and the wrath of Gudrun ; 
And through it, and round it, and over it all 
Sounded incessant the waterfall/* 



CHAPTER IV. 



IN AND ABOUT ODDE. 



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CHAPTER IV, 



Odde — Sandven Vand — Difficulties with the Lan- 
guage — A Norwegian Saddle — Buakbr/E Glacier 
— BuAR Farm — STOLKj.iiRRE — Laatefos — Remark- 
able Horse Vocabulary — Kindness to Animals — 
Stores. 

KVERY fjord has at its upper end a 
green valley watered by streams 
that flow from the mountains around it. 
Such a place is Odde. Not particularly 
interesting in itself, it is a good spot from 
which to make excursions; and, after a 
hurried lunch, we started for the Buarbra: 
glacier, under the guidance of a i)atri- 



64 Glimpses of Norseland, 

archal old man with long white hair and 
keen blue eyes. 

He was evidently a friendly old fellow, 
but from force of circumstances our con- 
versation was limited to signs. A twenty 
minutes' walk under a burning sun brought 
us to the glittering Sandven Vand (lake), 
which being fed by glacial streams, is so 
cold, it is said, that not even cold-btooded 
fish can live in it. It was but a few minutes' 
row to the little hamlet of Jordal, where we 
expected to procure saddle-horses for the 
ascent; but here began our first difficulty 
with the language. We had previously 
remarked that many Norwegian words 
sounded similar to their English equiva- 
lents, such as : have (have), bring (bring), see 
(see), vil (will), komme (come), varme (warm), 



Similarity of Langttages, 65 

alle (all), syg (sick), glv mlg 7nln Hat (give 
me my hat), etc., remnants evidently of that 
language which the Norse invaders carried 
to Britain and introduced into the Anglo- 
Saxon ten centuries ago. But notwith- 
standing the similarity of some old word- 
stems, these people could not or would not 
understand us, and even to our Phrase 
Book request for " To Heste " (two horses), 
the gaunt peasant to whom we applied paid 
no further heed than to silently and firmly 
point at one shaggy pony with an extraordi- 
nary arrangement on its back, evidently a 
saddle, though it had instead of pommels a 
back and sides like those of a chair; and 
instead of a stirrup a horizontal bar on 
which one could rest both feet. 

It would have been almost impossible for 



66 Glimpses of Norseland. 



a rider to have fallen out of this contri- 
vance, but it was by no means " a flowery 
bed of ease;" for, being very large, at each 
movement of the horse we would be pitched 
forward on his neck. As we looked at the 
stolid peasant, I could not forbear hum- 
ming : 

" Do we not learn from runes and rhvmes 
Made by the gods in elder times, 
And do not still the great Scalds teach, 
That silence better is than speech ? " 

However, as nothing else could be ex- 
tracted from the silent man, we determined 
to take turns in riding the steed, and not 
to be daunted at the commencement of our 
journey. 

Up, up we struggled, following the course 
of the brawling Buar river uniil at last we 



A Tale of Olden Time, 67 

reached a little cot on the very edge of the 
glacier. Around its low doors frisked a 
number of goats, and as we passed, yellow- 
haired children peeped shyly through the 
tiny windows. Not a very cheerful home, 
surely, for imaginative children, if they had 
ever heard of the legend which is told of the 
ghastly blue glacier which, like some huge 
octopus, stretches its deathly arms to their 
very doors. The tale runs in this wise : 
Long, long ago, in place of this mighty ice- 
field, there was a beautiful valley so large 
and fertile that the families of seven parishes 
found homes and food on its verdant bosom. 
At first the inhabitants were righteous and 
godly, but as times went on and their pros- 
perity increased they became, like the men 
of Sodom and Gomorrah, so idle and wicked 



68 Glimpses of Norseland, 

that the Lord's anger was aroused and He 
determined to destroy them. Instead of 
accomplishing His purpose by means of fire, 
as in those fated Eastern cities, He decided 
to use the colder elements in the destruction 
of fair Folgedal. So for seventy days He 
caused a great snow-storm to rage till the 
valley was a mountain of snow and every 
human being in it had perished. For some 
time after this awful judgment, strange 
birds, with plumage of red and black and 
green and yellow, were seen to hover about 
its edge, the spirits, so the pious peasants 
said, of the wicked inhabitants of the valley. 
Even now at times timorous travellers who 
have crossed the Folgefond will recount 
strange tales of the tolling of bells and 
barking of dogs heard in its snowy wastes. 



The Bitarbrce Glacier. 69 

The Buarbrae is one of the arms of this 
immense glacial shroud, and during the last 
fifty years it has been advancing slowly but 
irresistibly, pushing before it a ridge of 
earth and stone, and tearing away parts 
of the solid mountain walls that obstruct 
its path. As we looked at this narrow 
glacier and saw the mighty boulders it had 
rent from the solid granite, we could under- 
stand better how water in the form of ice 
had ploughed a passage through mighty 
hills, leaving behind it the great gorges and 
wonderful fjords of Norway. The cavern 
of the Buarbrae was remarkably beautiful, 
being of a greenish-blue tint merging into 
intense dark blue, and the contrast of the 
foaming white river leaping from it was 
striking. We penetrated a little way into 



JO Glimpses of Norselajid. 



this amethystine hall, but only a little way, 
for the guide followed us, and by his ener- 
getic remonstrances and expressive face 
warned us of danger from the falling of 
boulders which were imbedded in its icy 
vault. 

A little way below the glacier, from which 
we beat a hasty retreat, was the Buar farm, 
famed for its milk and cheese ; but the 
owner was in great distress of mind on 
account of the incertitude of the future. 
Already had the resistless mass swallowed 
up some of his woodlands, and it was only 
a question of time, if the glacier continued 
to advance, before the entire farm would 
share the same fate. He had tried to sell 
it, but could find no purchaser. Poor man ! 
We could only hope the mass would, like 



Meeting Aequaintances. 71 

__ ^j 

so many others, either remain stationary 
or retire. 

As we descended the hill we stopped at 
the little cot for crackers and wine, and 
there we met some of our Norwegian ac- 
quaintances. It is one of the features of 
travel in Norway that one is ever meet- 
ing familiar faces in out-of-the-way places. 
Every one takes a different route in going 
through the fjords, and, every one is sure 
that his is the best way^ and whenever he 
can find a listener, expatiates on its beauties. 
So it was some time before we could tear 
ourselves away, and it was five o' the clock 
before we reached the hotel. The trip to 
the Buarbrae had taken us four hours, and 
to go to the waterfall would require as 
many more, for it was about the same dis- 



72 Glimpses of Norscland, 



tance from Odde, but we decided to make 
it, for, in the long opalescent twilights that 
Norway has during the summer months, 
one never thinks of the time, seven o'clock 
in the evening being as pleasant a time to 
set out as seven o'clock in the morning. 
We had asked the landlord for a cart and 
driver, and soon one of the national vehicles 
made its appearance. The stolkjcerre, as it 
was called, was a small, two-wheeled, spring- 
less cart, with long thick shafts extending 
far enough behind the axletree to make a 
support for the board on which the post-boy 
sat, while the wooden seat was perched on 
two wooden bars which stretched obliquely 
upwards and backwards from the front of 
the vehicle. Near the dasher were two 
stirrup-shaped irons on which the driver 



A National Conveyance. 73 

might brace his feet if the horse went so 
fast as to make his seat unsteady, but we 
found Httle need for them except in de- 
scending steep hills. The harness was as 
simple as the carriage, being without traces, 
breeching, check rein, or blinders ; and the 
sturdy, cream-colored pony, with his long, 
flowing black tail and short-cropped, bushy, 
black mane, was fastened to the shafts only 
by the saddle tugs. He looked too fat and 
small to do more than walk, but no sooner 
had the driver given the signal than the 
little fellow gave a toss to his head and 
started off at a great pace. Away we 
bowled over a splendid road ; on one side of 
us massive hills rose perpendicularly hun- 
dreds of feet high, and on the other glittered 
the cold blue waters of the Sandven Vand. 



74 Glimpses of Norselaiid. 

Little emerald isles rose here and there 
from its surface, and 'mid fields of golden 
grain appeared red farm-houses with sodded 
roofs. On either side from the top of the 
cliffs dashed countless fosses, some of them 
well worth a special visit At regular in- 
tervals along the roadside were set short, 
red posts, something like those that the 
Tyrolese erect to commemorate an escape 
from danger or to mark an accident. It is 
the custom in Norway for each peasant to 
keep a part of the road in proper repair, 
and these posts recorded the names of the 
farmers to whom each portion fell. If the 
bonder prefers, he can pay a highway tax 
instead of working it out, but the Norwe- 
gian peasants are usually too frugal to 
spend their hard-earned money for what 



Laatefos at Sunset, 75 

their own hands can do. The Laatefos, 
the object of our trip, consisted of two 
beautiful cataracts which burst from the 
summit of a giant cH£f, and when about 
half-way down united their seething waters 
in a column of foam. As the mass plunged 
down the inky sides of the cliff the air was 
full of its thundering and the spray dashed 
far over the broad road. The sun was 
sinking as we took our seats again in the 
stolkjaerre ; and bathed in its solemn light, 
the fall was most beautiful, for the water 
took on odd prismatic colors and looked 
like a shattered rainbow against its back- 
ground of inky rock. 

The return drive w^as more like a dream 
than a reality. All nature seemed sleeping ; 
the fleecy clouds rested low on the purple 



76 Glimpses of Norseland. 

hills ; the trees stood out sharply like etch- 
ings against the saffron sky; the mountain 
streams gleamed like flashes of lightning 
adown the sombre precipices. 

" The western waves of ebbing day 
Rolled o'er the glen their level way. 
Each purple peak, each flinty spire, 
Was bathed in floods of livins: fire. 
But not a setting beam could glow 
Within the dark ravines below, 
Where twined the path in shadow hid 
Round many a rocky pyramid, 
Shooting abruptly from the dell 
Its thunder-splintered pinnacle.'' 

Why are the sublime and the ridiculous 
always so near together .^^ The ridiculous 
assumed the form of our driver. He was 
a good-natured man, but possessed of an 
enormous horse vocabulary. The first time 



Our Driver. jj 



he raised his stentorian voice he gave 
vent to a long brur-r r, a kind of roar- 
ing purr. I clutched my companion, and 
trembling we awaited developments. The 
steed stopped; and what would probably 
have the effect of causing our American 
horses to run away seemed to have a sooth- 
ing effect on these Norwegian animals. At 
times the guide would speak cheerfully and 
encouragingly to his pony, then, that being 
of no avail, he would sadly plead ; usually, 
however, the air would be filled with his 
vehement gutturals. Through it all the 
horse kept the even tenor of his way, trot- 
ting when he pleased, and walking when he 
pleased. 

One feature that is ver}^ noticeable among 
these peasants, and which some assert is a 



78 Glimpses of Norselaiid. 

proof of their Oriental origin, is their con- 
sideration and care for their animals. In 
all our travels we never saw a thin, hungry- 
looking horse ; and the use of the whip 
seemed almost unknown. At every little 
rising in the road the driver would dis- 
mount and walk, and often we were obliged 
to do the same. The little animals appear 
to be in perfect sympathy with their owners, 
and when they stop to rest, as they some- 
times do, they will turn their intelligent 
eyes on the driver as though to say: "In 
a moment, master, we w^ill trot on again." 

Our little fellow brought us back to Odde 
in time to do some shopping at the two 
stores of the place. Hammer's and Hell- 
strom's. The latter belied his name, as he 
offered not fire but silver, and that, too, at 



The Bridal Crown, 79 

very reasonable prices. In the windows of 
each store were large dolls dressed as 
peasant brides. Their gowns were similar 
in make to the every-day dresses of the 
women, but of a much finer material ; over 
their hands were laid three or four hand- 
kerchiefs and on their heads were silver-gilt 
crowns. 

The great feature of the bride's costume 
is the wedding crown. It is usually made 
of beaten silver, with many fantastic points 
and dangling disks, in which are set bright 
imitation jewels, and sometimes its appear- 
ance is made still more showy by the 
addition of brass trimmincjs. Almost all of 
the old families of Norway possess one of 
these crowns, which is used by its daughters 
for generations. No virtuous Norwegian 



8o Glimjyses of Noi^seland. 

maiden will be married without the gaudy 
crown, and if her own family are not rich 
enough to possess one, she borrows the 
precious heirloom from a neighbor. 

This of course applies to the peasant 
class, although in the cities the higher born 
damsels w^ear a wreath, or crown of flowers, 
which answers the same purpose of invest- 
ing them with royal adornments for once 
in their lives. 

Although it was ten o'clock in the even- 
ing when w^e left the stores, there was no 
need of artificial lights, for it was not yet 
sunset. The summer days in the vicinity 
of Bergen are nearly four hours longer 
than in the latitude of Boston, and as one 
travels farther north the hours of daylight 
increase, until at the North Cape, for up- 



Length of Days. 8i 

wards of two months the sun never sinks 
below the horizon. The Norwegians be- 
come so accustomed to sleeping in light 
rooms that window-shades are seldom pro- 
vided in their houses ; but at well-travelled 
Odde we were fortunate enough to find 
these useful articles, and that night we sunk 
to rest in a darkness that reminded us of 
American nights. 



CHAPTER V. 



OVER FJELD AND FJORD TO VIK. 



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CHAPTER V, 



Odde TO ViK — ^ Norwegian Constitution — Legal Code 

— EiDE — Norwegian Hospitality — Ride over the 
Mountains — Trouble with the Horse — National 
Proverb — System of Bag Weights — Roving Ponies 

— Ulvik — An Appetising Meal — Row to Vh< — 
Eagle-Nest Huts — Ollendorfian Conversation — 

ViK. 



RAP! rap! rap! on our door and a 
voice saying, " Only fifteen minutes 
before the steamer starts for Eide." Hastily 
gathering together our few parcels, we ran 
to the wharf, and in a breathless state 
reached the steamer as the whistle sounded. 
'Tis only a three hours' sail to Eide, and 



86 Glimpses of Norscland. 

we passed the time pleasantly in conversa- 
tion with an old clergyman who gave us a 
very exact idea of the Norwegian Constitu- 
tion, which differs largely from the Swedish. 

Norway has its ovvai Parliament, its own 
officials, and its own excise. A bill which 
passes its Storthing (answering to our Con- 
gress) can be vetoed twice by the king, but 
if it passes a third time it is beyond his 
power. Norway furnishes five-seventeenths 
of the support of the royal family and the 
same proportion of soldiers and sailors. 
Although there is no love lost between the 
two countries, it is so clearly for their inter- 
est to remain one in foreign affairs that 
there is no danger of their being disunited. 

Then, speaking of the legal code, the old 
man said it dated back to 1687 and was so 



A Concise Legal Code. 87 



clear and concise that it formed only a 
pocket volume, and was possessed by every 
well-to-do family in Norway. 

As w^e approached Eide, we hastily 
searched our phrase book for words, and 
as soon as we crossed the gangway ex- 
claimed to a group of peasants : " Vi ville 
have to gallopirende Heste med saddles.'' 
We were evidently understood, for a man 
seized our bags and led the way up the long 
dusty street that leads through Eide. While 
we waited for our steeds to be saddled our 
attention was attracted by a small, neat cot- 
tage which stood by the wayside. Its win- 
dows were filled with flowers, and in the bit 
of garden adjoining it stood an aged dame 
employed in plucking clusters of currants 
from a row of well-filled bushes. We saw 



88 Glimpses of Norseland. 



and we desired, so approaching the paling 
we leaned over and said cordially, *' Goddag, 
gamel Kone " (Good-day, old wife). No 
sooner had we said it than she hurried to 
open the gate and beckoned us to enter and 
take our fill of the luscious fruit. This is 
only one example of the many kindnesses 
that we met all along our route. Apropos 
of the universal Norwegian hospitality, a 
friend of ours told us of an experience that 
he once had. He was making a pedestrian 
tour through the mountains, and in some 
way he mistook the path and wandered into 
unfamiliar regions. After roaming about 
aimlessly for some time, he came at last, 
just at shut of day, upon a prosperous farm. 
Although he presented a rather suspicious 
appearance, being toil-worn and dusty, the 



The National HospilaiUy, 89 

good-hearted family welcomed him warmly, 
prepared the company chamber for him, and 
spread their best for his evening repast. 
The next day, as he was about to leave, they 
insisted that he should not go so soon, urg- 
ing him so cordially to prolong his stay, 
that it was not until the third day that he 
bade adieu to the worthy household to 
whom previously he had been an utter 
stranger. While we were in Bergen we 
went for a walk with this entertaining gen- 
tleman, and he pointed out to us an old 
house which completely obstructed one end 
of a small bridsfe. " What an odd idea ! 
Why was that built so ? " we asked. 

" Another proof of the genuineness of 
our hospitality," he answered with a smile, 
"for that was constructed so that each one 



90 Glimpses of Norseland. 

who crossed the bridge would be obliged to 
pass through the house and exchange a 
greeting with the hospitable family.'' 

But to return to our horses : it was with 
stained fingers and lips that we mounted 
them, and waving adieu to the " old wife " 
began our four hours' ride over the moun- 
tains. There are other ways of reaching 
Ulvik, by posting routes or by steamer, but 
the ride had been described to us as being 
by far the most interesting, although rather 
rough in places for timid travellers ; and so, 
being fond of novelty, we decided to at- 
tempt it. We had not ridden a mile before 
I suspected, from the lack of spirit and the 
labored breathing of my horse, that he was 
suffering from some illness. Suspicion 
soon grew into certainty, and hurriedly 



A Trial of Patience. 9 1 

searching our book we demanded in broken 
Norsk, " Another horse immediately ! " " Ja, 
ja, vi komme strax'' (We will come imme- 
diately), said the guide as he disappeared 
through the pines with the panting horse, 
while we endured the delay as best we 
might. 

The minutes flew by, ten, fifteen, twenty. 
" Komme strax ! " groaned I. " Oh ! here is 
an applicable proverb," interrupted my com- 
panion : " When a Norwegian says he will 
come immediately, look for him in a half an 
hour ; " and she added, " sure enough, here 
he comes." 

Our new Pegasus was a tiny fellow, not 
nearly large enough to carry the immense 
saddle with which he was equipped. Again 
we started, and again we were obliged to 



92 Glimpses of Norseland. 

stop, for at each step of the horse the 
saddle sHpped from side to side. What to 
do ? There were ten hours of journeying 
before us, and there was not time to send 
again to the village. We were travelling 
in the old-fashioned manner of our grand- 
mothers, with our bags and parcels fastened 
to the saddles. Suddenly the idea occurred 
to us of using these bags as weights, sus- 
pending them from one side until the incline 
of the saddle grew dangerous, and then 
changing them to the other. 

The scheme proved efficacious, and we 
again pursued our rocky way, which in 
places was only the bed of an old moun- 
tain stream. As we approached the summit 
of the mountain, the stretches of aromatic 
firs were broken, and through the openings 



Over the Mou7itam to Ulvik. 93 

we could catch glimpses of castellated moun- 
tains with their green slopes dotted with 
trig little farms and tiny orchards ; of shin- 
ing threads of water sparkling and dancing 
from the sky-line to sink in forest depths, 
and of towering mountains and cliffs 
wrapped in fleeces of silvery white, with 
helmets of ice upon their lofty brows. Now 
the path led under jutting shelves of rock, 
carpeted with brilliant orange lichens, and 
now past clumps of gnarled and aged pines. 

**The pines, those old primeval pines 
That writhe, recalling soon 
The famous human group that writhes 
With snakes in wild festoon, — 
In ramous wrestlings interlaced, 
A forest Laocoon." 

Often the road would lose itself amomj 
tumbled rocks and pathless fields, nccessi- 






94 Glimpses of Norseland. 



tating that the ponies sh/ould guide them- 
selves. ^ 

We came to one/ place where two trails 
met, and my horse chose the narrow one 
that bordei;-ed the edge of a precipice. 
Shouts 'Irom behind stayed me in my reck- 
l^^^l course, but the question was how to 
turn on the narrow ledge and retrace our 
steps. The guide did not leave me long 
in doubt, but grasping the horse's head he 
pulled him around. Of course his feet 
went over the edge, and for one awful mo- 
ment, while the guides shouted and pulled, 
and I whipped, it seemed as though the 
narrow path led to destruction. 

In the struggle the girth broke, and when 
we regained the path, we presented a de- 
cidedly dilapidated appearance. 



An Attractive Station. 95 

With all our delays, it took us but six 
hours to cross the mountains, and at four in 
the afternoon we rode into the beautiful little 
town of Ulvik. 

Nestled as it is on the edge of the fjord, 
giant cliffs on every side, it is protected from 
all winds, and its trim green meadows and 
snug farm-houses give evidence of thrift and 
prosperity. 

At the hotel we were received by the 
good-man and his wife with great cordiality, 
and were soon discussing a tempting meal 
garnished with the sauce of a good appetite. 
The dining-room was a low, comfortable 
room, sweet with the perfume of the flowers 
that filled its windows. The table was 
covered with a coarse white cloth which the 
landlady told us was not ironed, but wrung 



g6 Glimpses of N'orseland. 

dry with a mangle, and on it were gay little 
dishes of red and white china decorated 
with flowers and simple Grecian and Etrus- 
can patterns. 

Here and there were fascinating squat 
silver pitchers full of rich cream, and in 
every dish were quaint little silver spoons 
with curled handles. 

There is a great deal of similarity in the 
food at all the stations ; every one is sup- 
posed to be hungering after salmon in some 
form, and for grouse or reindeer. 

This time, after the soup of cauliflower, 
we were served with boiled salmon, roast 
grouse, and a kind of nut pudding. 

I must not forget the ever-present cheese; 
it appeared in every shape, age, and color, 
from white, through varying shades of 



Ferrymen, 97 



brown, till it arrived at a state where a 
glass dish tightly closed was little enough 
protection to our olfactories. 

Five o'clock saw us seated in a flat-bot- 
tomed row-boat, gliding over the sparkling- 
waters of the Ulvik's Fjord. Our stalwart 
boatmen were good types of the Norwegian 
peasant : tall, well-knit forms, long faces 
with high cheek-bones, complexions sun- 
dyed, and bright blue eyes rather close to- 
gether. Their expression was one of serious 
content. Life is no trivial affair, to be 
laughed and danced through, to these sons 
of the North ; serious they must be where 
every blade of grass is money, and food is 
scant. As we skimmed over the water and 
looked up to the towering hills, we could 
dimly descry tiny little huts perched far up 



98 Glimpses of Norseland. 

almost on the verge of the eternal snow; a 
precipitous path and a small boat at the foot 
of it being the only sign of connection with 
the world below. Often, we were told, the 
foothold in those places is so small that 
children and animals have to be tethered to 
trees and rocks to prevent them from falling 
over the edges; and every year deaths are 
reported from a misstep in ascending or de- 
scending. When death comes in the winter 
months, it is impossible to bring down the 
body for burial, and so it is kept preserved 
by the pure, cold air and snowy surroundings 
till spring comes. 

Strange it seems, that with all God's beau- 
tiful world man can be content to live and 
have his being in such an eagles nest! 
Although we started in sunshine it was not 



A Tempestuotis Fjord, 99 

long before the rain was pouring upon us in 
sheets and the smooth fjord was covered 
with white caps. 

"The sullen sky grew black above, 
The wave as black beneath ; 
Each roaring billow showed full soon 
A white and foamy wreath, 
Like angry dogs that snarl at first 
And then display their teeth/' 

Our boatmen struggled in vain against 

the waves with their long, slender oars, and 

though we hugged the shore we w^ere soon 

drenched by the rain, while, — 

** The wave, per saltum, came and dried 
In salt upon our cheek ! " 

'Twas then we hazarded the remark : " Vi 
gaae live med Fiske ? " (We go live with 
the fishes?) an original way of inquiring if 
there was danger of drowning. A solemn 



lOO Glimpses of Norseland, 

shake of the head was our only answer, 
but soon we turned into the Eidfjord and 
smoother water. This fjord was very pict- 
uresque, being shut in by lofty, steep, and 
naked fjelds, through whose openings here 
and there we caught glimpses of the great 
Hardanger glacier. 

The water was of a peculiar translucent 
green and as cold as ice on account of the 
glacial streams that poured into it. 

As we approached Vik we attempted to 
converse with our modern Vikings, who had 
rowed so long and well, and as our remarks 
were encouragingly received we gradually 
grew bolder, and plied the unhappy men 
with questions and remarks a la Ollendorff 
viz., Fanny: " Fjeld er stor" (The mountain 
is tall). 



Ollendorjian Attempts. loi 

I : " Er dette Grass ? " (Is that grass ?) 
Fanny, pointing to a bird : '' Hvad Navn 
har det Hest ? " (What name has that horse ?) 
and then begging the dumbfounded men to 
"Se die Mysost am Fjelde," to (See the 
cheese on the hill), fondly believing that she 
was calling attention to a goat. In vain the 
men tried to keep from smiling; even their 
politeness could not withstand that ! These 
Norwegians were remarkable or rather su- 
perhuman in their comprehension of our 
remarks, and in the gravity that they main- 
tained under all circumstances. 

Landing at Vik we gave them their pay, 
and added the usual "drink money," as it is 
called, whereupon they took off their hats 
and offered to shake hands. This custom 
of shaking hands on the slightest occasion 



I02 Glimpses of Noi^seland, 

is a marked trait of the kind-hearted Norse- 
man, but it required at times a goodly 
amount of resolution on our part to grasp 
the unwashed hands of peasants and post- 
boys (when our own chanced to be unpro- 
tected by gloves) ; and if we had not taken 
as our motto, " When in Rome do as the 
Romans do," I fear we should have often 
omitted the friendly act. The Norwegian 
towns are often named with reference to 
their geographical situations. Thus Eide. 
means an isthmus; Odde, built on a small 
strip of land between a lake and a fjord, 
signifies a tongue of land, and Vik a 
creek. Seen in the darkening light, the 
" creek " seemed to consist only of a long- 
row of wretched hovels with grassy roofs, 
and a large hotel; but the next day we 



Vik 011 the Eidfjord, 103 

discovered it was an unusually fertile valley 
with many well-kept farms. As it is the 
starting-point for the famous Voringfos, we 
found the hotel crowded, and we had some 
difficulty in obtaining a room. A room 
engaged, the next thing was to get horses 
and guides for the morrow. As it is con- 
sidered a nine hours* trip to the fall, and our 
steamer left for Eide at two in the afternoon, 
it was necessary for us to start by four in 
the morning. The landlord on being inter- 
viewed showed he had no faith in the na- 
tional proverb, " Morgenstund har Guld i 
Mund" (The morning hour has gold in its 
mouth), for he said it would be an utter 
impossibility to make the trip under ten 
hours, and we could neither have breakfast, 
guides, nor horses so early in the morning. 



I04 Glimpses of Norseland. 



What to do ? We must keep to our original 
plan. Happily, the thought occurred to us 
that we could tell him we were intendins: to 
write a book (a thought that till then had 
not entered our minds), and if he accommo- 
dated us in this matter, as he could perfectly 
well, we would notice the fact. 

No sooner said than done, and tired but 
triumphant we sought our hard beds under 
the eaves. 

In justice to " mine host," it is proper to 
add that he really does all he can for the 
accommodation of his many guests, sets a 
good table, and provides reliable guides to 
the fall 



CHAPTER VL 



A VISIT TO THE VORINGFOS. 



CHAPTER VI. 



Visit TO THE Voringfos — The Maabo Farm — Methods 
OF Conversation — Sure-footed Ponies — Hol Farm 
— Peasant Proprietorship — Norwegian Music — 
Confirmation Service — Old Church — Speeding the 
Parting Guests. 



IT was three o'clock in the morning when 
we, two travel-worn and weary women, 
arose from our bunks, which, shaped like 
shallow boxes, were built into the wall, and 
descended to our breakfast of crackers and 
milk. 

A drive of a mile brought us to a sheet 
of dark-green water called Oifjord ; and, 
after an hour's row across it we arrived at 



io8 Glimpses of Norseland. 

the Maabo farm where we expected to pro- 
cure horses at once. 

But no one had yet arisen ; all was quiet 
in the little moss-roofed hovels. Finally, 
after much rapping, a youth issued from one 
of the huts rubbing his eyes and bringing 
with him a combination of odors by no 
means pleasant. " The horses were up the 
mountain, but he would catch and saddle 
them immediately." 

Resigning ourselves to the circumstances, 
we beguiled the tedium of waiting by trying 
our stock of phrases on the guide. 

They were received with the astonish- 
ment and admiration we had expected, and 
proudly we asked, " Ere vi ikke meget god 
touriste ? " (Are we not very good travellers }) 
This phrase was the only one that we were 



Methods of Conversation. 109 

confident was correct, and it always received 
the cordial assent that it did in this case. 
If not agreed to immediately we were ac- 
customed to ask indignantly, " Forstaaer De 
ikke ? " (Do you not understand ?) We soon 
had the whole history of our bright little 
guide, though he must often have been con- 
fused by our mixture of English, German, 
and Norsk. 

Why is it, I wonder, that we expect a 
Norwegian will understand our English 
words if we only change their accent or add 
an e? 

This was our method when our Norse 
vocabulary failed us, and then if our pigeon 
English was not comprehended, after being 
repeated again and again, our disappointed 
looks and gestures would seem to be recip- 



no Glimpses of Norscland. 

rocated by the sympathetic folk, who man- 
aged to convey to us, despite their ignorance 
of English, their regret that the situation 
was hopeless. 

We succeeded, however, far better than 
we expected in making our wants under- 
stood and ourselves intelligible. 

In about three-quarters of an hour the 
sleepy youth made his appearance with our 
steeds. 

One was equipped with the usual rocking- 
chair saddle and the other with an attempt 
at an English lady's saddle ; only an attempt, 
however, as half of its one remaining pom- 
mel was gone. 

Up a long hill we rode : steep and stony, 
but nothing to what we were to expe- 
rience. 



Tg the Voring/os. 1 1 1 



These Norwegian ponies are most remark- 
able animals ! 

At first, when they would scramble up 
dizzy heights or slide down precipitous 
declivities, there would be a pause to our 
merriment and a convulsive grasp on the 
saddle. 

But, as the w^ay is entirely composed of 
heights and depths without any perceptible 
path, w^e soon became so reckless and callous 
that in the most dangerous places, where a 
false step or a loosened girth would have 
dashed us to certain death, the rocks would 
resound to our merry cries of : " Hup, vil De 
gaae ? " the Norwegian method of spurring 
on a lagging horse. 

In several places the rocks were perfectly 
sheer, without a scrap of moss or an inden- 



1 1 2 Glimpses of Norseland. 

tation on their slippery surfaces, and in 
others were regular fliohts of stairs hoi- 
lowed out of the rock, up which these re- 
markable animals would clamber, and down 
which they would jump step by step. 

In their first jumps we would involun- 
tarily hold our breath and cling to the saddle, 
but it soon became an old story; " Familiarity 
does indeed breed contempt.'' Down, down 
w^e went into the beautiful Maabo valley. 
On every side rose the mighty fjelds thou- 
sands of feet high, '' rock-ribbed and ancient 
as the sun," while the valley seemed like a 
beautiful cup with an emerald bottom. 

Up through the wonderful gorge with its 
roaring torrent and cloud-tipped walls we 
pursued our rocky way, till at last we drew 
rein before the door of the Hoi farm, almost 



The Voriiigfos. 1 1 3 

three thousand feet above the little Oifjord 
and the Maabo farm. A mighty roaring 
filled the air; and hastily descending from 
our horses we crossed the swaying suspen- 
sion bridge and stood before the far-famed 
torrent. 

A sheer fall of seven hundred feet, though 
measured from its upper edge it reaches a 
height of two thousand two hundred and 
twenty-five feet, it pours its vast waters 
through a deep, dark ravine into the brawl- 
ing Bjoreia river. As the angry mass 
reaches the stony bottom of the ravine it 
rebounds in a dense column of dazzling 
foam. 

It was this column of spray which first 
attracted the attention of some peasants and 
led to the discovery of the fall about sixty 



1 1 4 Glimpses of Norselaiid. 

years ago. As we, wet w^ith the spray, 
gazed at the miglity waters gushing from 
the inky chfT, these hnes of Coleridge 
seemed most appropriate : — 

*' You, you wild, wild torrent fiercely glad ! 
Who called you forth from night and utter death, 
From dark and icy caverns called you forth, 
Down those precipitous, black, jagged rocks 
Forever shattered and the same forever ? 
Who gave you your invulnerable life, 
Your strength, your speed, your fury, and your joy. 
Unceasing thunder and eternal foam? 
Who bade the sun clothe you with rainbows ? 
'God ! ' let the torrents, like a shout of nations, 
Answer ; and let the ice-plains echo, * God ! ' ^' 

Voringfos has been compared to Niagara, 
but in my estimation there can be no com- 
parison, as the chief beauty of one is its 
tremendous height and dense column of 



Hoi Farm. 1 1 5 



spray, and of the other its great breadth 
and volume. 

We stopped on our way back at the Httle 
house for coffee and smorbrod. The Nor- 
wegians rightly call it ^^///'^r-bread, for, pre- 
pared in the national way, the bread is 
spread half an inch thick with fresh butter, 
and sometimes it has also a thick covering 
of sugar, but this last preparation is con- 
sidered a great delicacy and is only served 
at weddings. 

On the walls of the two rooms, in which 
the peasant woman who had charge of the 
house spent her summers, hung several bits 
of the fine embroidery, in the manufacture 
of which the Norwegians excel. One piece 
in particular took our fancy, It was a little 
blouse of white cambric so finely embroid- 



1 1 6 Glimpses of Norselaiid. 

ered in black that it was hard to beheve 
that the toil-worn fingers of a peasant wo- 
man could have done it. What a lonely 
summer this woman must spend, far away 
from her family and friends, with the mo- 
notonous thundering of the water-fall ever 
sounding in her ears, and her solitude 
relieved only by the occasional visit of a 
tourist! No wonder the Norwegian dames 
are less talkative than their sisters of the 
South ! 

Leaving the little dwelling and looking 
toward the distant hills we could catch 
glimpses of other tiny habitations nestled 
among great boulders far up steep prec- 
ipices. There, in hollows once filled with 
ice, were probably deposits of rock forma- 
tion and gravel which the peasant's skill and 



Old Homesteads. 1 1 7 

industry had transformed into pasture lands. 
Our guide told us that oftentimes those 
spots had been in one family so long that 
the title-deeds were written in a dead lan- 
guage ; this explained why land which no 
farmer or laborer under our system could 
or would cultivate is here the treasured pos- 
session of generations. 

Norway has never been cursed with feu- 
dalism, but every man is a free-holder, and 
glories in the fact. 

As we descended the rocky way the boy 
made the cliffs resound with his clear songs. 

The Norwegian music is strange and 
elusive, with odd jumps from low tones to 
high, queer minor chords, and throughout it 
all a weird minor strain. Our little fellow, 
however, had no sadness in his young face 



1 1 8 Glimpses of Norseland. 

as he merrily trilled out his notes and 
jumped lightly from rock to rock. 

Down through the Vidde, or mountain 
waste, our ponies constantly choosing the 
outer edge of the path and leaving but one 
stone between us and eternity ; over the 
decrepit bridge, so decrepit that only one 
horse could cross at a time, and so back 
aQ;ain to the Maabo farm. 

As we dismounted, the guide remarked 
that in the one hundred and twenty times 
he had been to the fall, we had made the 
quickest time, and that only one English 
woman besides ourselves had ever made the 
trip entirely on horseback ; whereupon we, 
to the astonishment of a group of g^piug 
natives, shook hands warmly and cried out, 
"America forever!" Then crossing the 



Au Important Rite. 119 

lake and stopping in one place to try an 
excellent echo, we regained our stolkjaerre 
and trotted gayly back to Vik. On our 
way we met numbers of peasants in holiday 
attire returning from church, who bowed 
and smiled as we passed. 

On account of the sparseness of the 
population and the great distances between 
churches, often services are held only once 
in several weeks, so that the pastor has long 
arrears of christenings, marriages, and fun- 
erals to make up when he does come. 

Great stress is laid on the confirmation 
service, as not till that has been passed 
satisfactorily can the youth enter business or 
the maid be married. It is not merely an 
examination in religion, but in many practi- 
cal branches ; and one often sees advertise- 



1 20 Glimpses of Norseland. 

ments in the papers for " a confirmed young 
woman as nurse,'' or '' a confirmed young 
man as clerk." 

As the church was open we entered and 
viewed the barren interior ; for though the 
service is Hturgical, there is no attempt 
made at stained glass or other adornments, 
and this church was lighted only by small 
lancet windows. 

The altar was divided into three panels 
decorated with stiff Byzantine figures ; and 
behind it was the well-preserved tombstone 
of Ragna Sad, the foundress of the church, 
who is said to have given the church to the 
parish to atone for some great transgression. 
Besides a sculpture of Ragna offering the 
church to St. Peter, the stone has a long in- 
scription in Runic characters. This church, 



An Ancie7it Church. 121 

although it dates back to the twelfth cen- 
tury, is a fair type of the modern Norweg- 
ian church. 

After a hasty lunch we hastened to the 
steamer, escorted by a crowd (crowd in Nor- 
wegian signifying a dozen people) of natives, 
among whom were our untiring little guide 
and the now beaming landlord. 

" I hope you had it well here and will 
come again," he cried. 

Truly, these Norwegians carry out the 
injunction, "to welcome the coming and 
speed the parting guest." 



CHAPTER VII . 



TWO DAYS ON FAMOUS POSTING 
ROUTES. 




CHAPTER VII, 



ViK TO Laerdalsoren — After-dinner Coffee — Busy 
Little Eide — Norwegian Carriole — Posting Sys- 
tem — An Accident on the Road — Carrioling to 
vossevangen — norwegian honesty — posting to 
Gudvangen — Stalheimsklev — Naerodal —A Won- 
derful Gorge — Weird Scenery — Gudvangen — 
Naero Fjord — Laerdalsoren. 

IT is but a two hours' sail to Eide, and 
we whiled away the time very pleas- 
antly with coffee and conversation. The 
partaking of after-dinner coffee is one of 
the important daily events in the life of a 
Norwegian ; and this custom also obtains 
on the steamers. 



I 26 Glifnpses of Norseland. 

About half an hour after the midday 
meal, the steward makes his appearance 
with a large waiter covered with fascinating 
little squat cups filled with the delicious am- 
ber-colored beverage, made only as the Nor- 
wegian can make it, and from the child 
upwards every one partakes of it. 

Eide at first sight seemed to be only a 
narrow strip of shore^ walled on one side by 
snow-topped mountains hundreds of feet 
high, and on the other by a white-capped 
fjord hundreds of feet deep ; and as we 
approached nearer we could look from the 
deck of the steamer into the windows of 
the dwellings, they were crowded so close to 
the water s edge ; but despite its small size, 
Eide is one of the busiest and most pros- 
perous spots on the Hardanger Fjord. Sit- 



Eide. 127 

uated at the head of the Graven Fjord, all 
the steamers call there ; all travellers who 
journey by rail to Vossevangen and wish to 
see the Hardanger Fjord pass through it; 
and here, too, those who intend to visit the 
Sogne bid farewell to the lovely Hardanger. 

We would fain have spent several days at 
Hide, it was such a dainty, cosy little spot, 
with its meadows of red and white bloom 
and its handful of trig farmsteads with their 
gardens and windows full of bright flowers : 
but time and tide wait for no man, and so 
we ordered our carrioles and prepared for 
our day's journey to Vossevangen. 

The carriole is a kind of two-wheeled eisf 
with a body shaped somewhat like the bowl 
of an immense spoon, and holding one per- 
son only. The seat is placed in front of the 



128 Glimpses of Noi^seland, 

axletree and is fastened by crosspieces to 
the long, slender shafts which project behind 
the axletree and are connected by a board 
that serves as a seat for the post-boy. The 
ponies, sturdy little fellows, of a light cream 
color with black flowing tails and short, 
bushy manes that look like nothing but an 
inverted shoe-brush, are without traces, and 
fastened only by a collar to the carriole ; 
they look as free as the coursers depicted 
on ancient Assyrian bas-reliefs. 

The posting routes are built by the gov- 
ernment, but at the stations, which are ten 
or twelve miles apart, the farmers are obliged 
to keep a stated number of horses, and also 
to keep the part of the road which passes 
through their land in good order. 

There is a fixed charge for posting, which 



Posthig System. 129 

amounts to about seven cents a mile be- 
tween fast stations and only about four 
between slow. Fast stations are those 
where a number of horses are always kept 
in readiness for the traveller ; and slow 
stations those at which the horses are not 
kept on hand, but are used in distant fields 
until needed. This system of posting is 
often very hard on the peasants, for when, in 
the short summer months, men and horses 
have to labor continually to glean enough 
to support themselves through the long 
winter, it hardly pays to take a tired animal 
from the plough, send him fifteen miles to a 
station from whence he must post another 
fifteen, and then receive in return only 
about a krone and fifty ore, equivalent to 
forty-five cents ! 



1 30 Glimpses of Norseland. 

There was a number of tourists carrioling 
to Vossevangen, and as we waited in a long 
line for the starting signal, there was a whirr 
and a shout behind, and a carriole dashed 
by, colliding with mine and overturning it. 
The travellers in these vehicles are buttoned 
tightly in with a leather apron ; so when 
the carriage began to tip, I knew I could 
not get out, and had resigned myself to fate, 
when a friend sprang forward and caught 
me just before the carriole touched the 
ground. 

Great confusion ! Horse kicking ! Men 
shouting ! Small boys running ! Finally 
the horse was disentangled and quieted, the 
small boys dispersed, and taking my seat 
again, we started for Vossevangen. 

This posting route we found to be one 



A Sple7tdid Highway, 131 

of the best as well as one of the most char- 
acteristic in Norway. Passing a great 
gleaming lake, rimmed with lush grass, and 
a charming silvery fos embowered in trees, 
which reminded us more of a Welsh view 
than of a Norwegian, we began to ascend 
in a series of narrow zigzags the face of 
a mighty cliff. 

At every turn the valley and the lake 
sank and grew smaller, while the great 
mountains opened and gave us glimpses of 
snow-clad heights and brown-roofed sceters. 

On all sides foamed and dashed and 
roared the waterfalls, while in front, over a 
wall three thousand feet high, the Skjervefos 
tumbled its mighty mass of angry water. 
The road was a mere cleft in the mighty 
boulders that rimmed it, but there was no 



132 Glimpses of Norselaiid. 

feeling of danger, for along the outer edge, 
between the great rocks, were iron bars, and 
the road itself was as smooth as a boule- 
vard. 

At the sixth zigzag we reached the great 
fall and crossed it 'mid spray and foam on a 
stone bridge black with wet ; then suddenly 
leaving all the noise and roaring of waters 
behind, we entered a sombre pine forest, 
whose stillness was only broken by the 
babbling of a little dark river and the 
soughing of the wind through the dark 
trees. 

On we went through stretches of swamp, 
stony moors, and silent forests, till we 
reached a more open country. Then down 
past well-cultivated fields, prosperous farms, 
and neat houses, with their gardens full of 



Vossevangen. 1 3 3 



phlox, larkspur, and rhubarb, until Vossevan- 
gen, guarded by its little white church, came 
into view. 

As we approached the town, the narrow 
river that had long glided quietly by the 
road, finding its way impeded by rocks and 
stones, grew white with rage, and, gathering 
all its forces just where the bridge crossed 
it, dashed with a triumphant roar into the 
valley below. 

Vossevangen is a pretty little hamlet sit- 
uated on the w^estern shore of a beautiful 
lake called the Vangs Vand. 

It is in one of the most prosperous agri- 
cultural districts in Norway, and its in- 
habitants are considered passing rich and 
fortunate ; for it is the market-garden of 
Bergen. 



134 Glimpses of Norseland. 

Our hotel was a neat, comfortable little 
building, with its garden, like that at Eide, 
full of homely, sweet-flowering plants, and 
its windows masses of bloom. 

In one part of the dining-room was a 
table covered with old silver exposed for 
sale : buttons, tankards, spoons, and rings ; 
here they lie year after year, a convincing 
proof of the Norwegian honesty. 

As we were looking the trinkets over, the 
landlady told us a tale of English generosity 
which did not compare very favorably with 
tlie Norweo^ian : — 

An English lady had dropped her purse 
at Vik, and soon after her departure one of 
the guides had found it. Immediately he 
started to find the owner, but for a long 
time only arrived at one place to find that 



Start for Gudvangen. 135 



she had just left for another; finally, after a 
long pursuit, he overtook her and delivered 
up the purse with not a penny missing, 
whereupon the woman rewarded him for his 
loss of time, and trouble in finding her, with 
a thirty ore piece, equivalent to our dime! 

The next day dawned bright and clear. 
We were indeed fortunate ; in one of the 
rainiest countries in the world w^e had had 
but passing showers. 

For the journey to Gudvangen we decided 
to take a stolkjcerre, which, though not so 
comfortable as the carriole, is, with its seat 
broad enough for two, far more compan- 
ionable. 

Still our way led upwards through 
stretches of firs, affording us picturesque 
peeps of lake and hill, glimpses of distant 



1 36 Glimpses of Norseland. 

mountains, and views of sparkling waterfalls. 
Every now and then ragged children would 
fly out of little mossy cots with saucers of 
berries, or race ahead of the carriage to 
open the gates ; their poverty-stricken faces 
and great eager eyes were pitiful to see. 

On and on we went, past the graceful 
Tvindefos with its cascades, which, broken 
by ledges of black rock, seem only billows of 
foam; past the dark Opheims Vand (lake), 
with its spear-like masses of reeds, till, 
climbing a high hill, we reached Stalheim. 

Up to this point the road had boasted 
only the usual beauties of Norwegian scen- 
ery, but almost directly on leaving Stalheim 
there burst upon our eyes a scene of un- 
equalled grandeur. 

Below us yawned a dark abyss, a mighty 



A Marvel of Engineering. 137 

rift in the everlasting hills that rose thou- 
sands of feet high on either side of it. 

How are we to descend ? We go forward 
and see one of the marvels of engineering 
of the world. The Stalheims-klev, or cliff, 
is over a thousand feet high, and down it the 
road, like an immense serpent, winds right 
and left in sixteen great loops with such 
regularity that the last bend at the foot is 
almost directly under the first at the summit. 
The grade does not appear to be abrupt, 
yet to prevent accident the traveller walks 
down it, to regain his carriage at the bot- 
tom. 

The grandeur of this remarkable^ road is 
further enhanced by two natural embellish- 
ments, for on the turn of the first loop 
a magnificent waterfall, the Stalheimsfos 



138 . Glimpses of Norseland, 



comes into view, and on the turn of the 
second loop appears the great Sevlefos. 

Roaring and foaming they thundered down 
the black crag, whose sides were furrowed 
into great grooves by the ages of impetuous 
waters. Above them projected the gnarled 
roots of ancient pines, and from inaccessible 
crevices hung purple blossoms, swayed and 
sprayed by the torrents. 

As we walked down this superb road to 
our waiting carriage, which from the top 
looked like a toy, it was wath a feeling of 
our own insignificance, a feeling that was 
increased by the drive through the wonder- 
ful vall.ey. On one side towered the pecul- 
iar Jordalsnut, of conical form, barren of 
verdure, strangely gray ; on the other, the 
mighty Kaldafjeld lifted its snow-capped 



Awe-inspiring Scenery, 139 

head to the height of four thousand six 
hundred and twenty-five feet. Belts of snow 
gleamed here and there, stunted black firs 
clung wherever they could find a foothold, 
quivering falls trembled down from the tops 
of precipices. 

The slopes of the mountains were cov- 
ered with the debris of many avalanches. 
The solemn hush was broken only by the 
footfalls of the horse and by the booming 
sound of a loosened rock. All around us 
were — 

'* Rocks, mountains, caves that seem not things of 
earth, 

But the wild shapes of some prodigious birth ; 

As if the kraken monster of the sea, 

Wallowing abroad in his immensity, 

By polar storms and lightning shafts assailed, 

Wedged with ice mountains here had fought and 

failed.'^ 



140 Glimpses of Norseland. 

As we passed under a massive boulder 
that seemed to tremble at the horse's tread. 
Fanny murmured, '* What ' Odes to Immor- 
tality' mountains are. 

" * While man's slow ages come and go, 
Their dateless chronicles of snow 
Their changeless old inscription show, 
And men therein forever see 
The unread speech of Deity.' " 

We both drew a breath of relief as we 
left the gloomy valley where twilight always 
reigns, and saw in the distance the glittering 
waters of the Naero Fjord. We had only a 
glimpse of Gudvangen as we passed through 
it at full speed to catch the steamer, but the 
little we saw convinced us that we could not 
spend the night there. A gloomy hamlet, 
with its few miserable buildings huddled in 



The Kilfos. 141 



among great boulders that had fallen from 
the precipitous mountains, and overhung by 
others that seemed as though they might 
at any moment fall and annihilate them ; 
a little chapel overlooking the sea, with a 
rough path protected by an iron railing 
leading to it, and a fall, the Kilfos, the only 
bit of light in the place. The guide told us 
that it was the highest perpendicular fall in 
the world, measuring as it did two thousand 
feet. As it fell into the fjord it became 
only a billowy mass of waving foam. 

The only difference between the Naero 
valley and the Naero Fjord is, that one has 
for a foundation land and the other water. 
As we glided on toward Laerdalsoren no 
pen could describe the weird, sombre scen- 
ery we passed through. Now in labyrinths 



142 Glimpses of Norseland, 

walled by giant cliffs, now threading our way 
through a watery field of boulders ; snowy 
peaks rising and sinking; wonderful shad- 
ows bathing the hills in purple, gray, and 
brown; glimpses of the greenish-blue gla- 
cier standing out against a golden west; 
fertile meadows, foaming fosses, tiers of em- 
purpled mountains, terrible gorges, brown- 
sailed shallops anchored in little bays, red- 
tiled hamlets rimmed with emerald fields 
and towering rocks, whirring of the wings 
of sea-birds, dashing of waves against the 
steamer, till at last we enter the harbor of 
Laerdalsoren. 



CHAPTER VIII. 



A DAY'S RIDE THROUGH THE 
LAERDAL. 




CHAPTER VIII. 

Laerdalsoren — A Splendid Highway — Description 
OF S.^ters — Hospitable Maidens — Bonder Eti- 
quette — The Marvellous Borgund Church — Draw- 
backs OF Riding — Haymaking — Rude System of 
Agriculture — Method of Storing Grain — On to 
Maristuen. 



y AERDALSOREN is neither an in- 
-*—< teresting nor a beautiful place. 

Surrounded on all sides by mountains, it 
consists of a long, straggling, wet street, 
bordered on either side by dingy, ill-kept 
hovels ; the two hotels and a church being 
the only presentable buildings in the town. 



146 Glimpses of Norseland. 

From Laerdalsoren to Christiania is a 
superb highway, and over a portion of tTiis 
the tourist must go to reach the far-famed 
Church of Borgund. We wished to make 
the trip on horseback ; and after much 
scouring of neighboring farms, a saddle was 
procured for one, and the other w^as obHged 
to be content wnth a springless carriole. 

Our way was wild and lonely, passing 
ovei' moraine deposits and under great over- 
hanging boulders. A hundred feet below 
the road, roared and seethed the river 
Laera, dashing its angry waves against the 
sides of the mighty ravine it had made for 
itself. 

Straggling farms were passed, their rude 
buildings and sodded roofs seeming appro- 
priate to the sombre landscape. Far up in 



Mou7itain Scoters. 147 

the mountains, on the edge of the eternal 
snow, were little brown huts called scoters. 

These log cabins, far away from the farms, 
are inhabited during the summer months by 
the daughters of the farmers who come here 
to pasture their cattle in the spots of aroma- 
tic grass that often abound in these rocky 
places. 

The maids usually start for their summer's 
work in the middle of June, and a few days 
before their departure there is a great con- 
fusion in the rude farmhouse. 

All the articles they will need during 
their long sojourn must be packed. Churns, 
milkpails, kettle, frying-pan, moulds for 
cheese, iron pots, and one or two cups with 
plates and spoons are tied together; then 
their scanty provisions, fladbrod, bacon, 



148 Glimpses of Norseland. 



coffee, and sugar, with salt for the cattle, 
and flour or meal, which will be mixed with 
skim-milk for the calves, are placed in bas- 
kets. 

A plenty of wool for stockings and pieces 
of cloth to embroider are tucked in wher- 
ever there is an empty space. Sometimes 
if the farm is poor all the family go to the 
saeter, but even when the maids go alone 
the sight is very picturesque. 

First strides the farmer, tooting a long 
horn of birch bark called a hir, in order to 
call the cattle ; then the old horse, weighed 
down with his heterogeneous load, followed 
by a long line of sheep, cows, goats, and 
mayhap pigs. The girls, with their gay, 
sleeveless bodices and short skirts, bring up 
the rear, bearing on their shoulders wooden 



ScEte7^ Life. 149 



yokes from which depend pots, kettles, and 
other domestic utensils. 

Sometimes these saeters are sixty miles 
away from the farms, and only tp be 
reached by a tortuous and dangerous path ; 
yet the girls go to them without fear, and 
no one ever hears of their having been 
molested. 

Their life is a very active one ; from sun- 
rise to sunset their hands are never idle, 
and often besides caring for their own cattle 
tliey have charge of other herds w^hose 
owners have no saeters of their own ; and so 
great is the Norwegian's faith in his fellow 
being that no farmer ever doubts but that 
he will receive his full quota of milk, cream, 
and cheese. 

The huts are divided into two rooms, the 
larger serving as kitchen, bedroom, and liv- 



Dairy Work. 1 5 1 



ing-room and the smaller as the dairy. 
Adjoining the cabin is a shed for the 
animals. 

After driving the cattle to pasture the 
girls return and begin the dairy work. One 
skims the milk, and putting the cream in 
the churn, begins to make butter ; another 
takes the soiled pails to the brook and 
cleanses them with fine sand and juniper 
branches, while a third feeds the calves on 
a mixture of skim-milk, flour, and salt. 

Then they occupy the rest of the time in 
cheese-making, embroidering and knitting, 
till the cattle come home, toled by handfuls 
of salt which the girls give them at night. 
On Sundays they attire themselves in their 
holiday clothes, and do no more work than 
is absolutely necessary, occupying the day 



152 Glimpses of Norscland. 

in reading the Bible, and, if other saeters are 
near, by visiting them. 

A hard, lonely life we should call it, and 
yet the lassies seem contented, and their 
blooming cheeks vouch for the healthfulness 
of the occupation. 

The visitor is always welcome at these 
lonely cots, and is sure of food and lodging, 
such as it is. 

When he approaches the saeter, one of 
the girls will run forward and offer him a 
large, flat pail of milk, begging him to 
drink. 

He is expected at first to refuse, saying 
'' Don't waste it on me," then the pige or 
girl insists, whereupon he takes a sip and 
returns it. 

Another entreaty, and then he must drink 



Borgund Church, 153 



as much as he can or he will show his igno- 
rance of etiquette. 

But though their etiquette is decided on 
matters like these, it does not embrace false 
modesty ; for in these tiny cabins there are 
usually but two beds, and yet the traveller is 
always made welcome to one. 

But to leave saeters and return to our 
carrioles : we bowled for some time over the 
smooth road rimmed with rocks, vv^hen sud- 
denly the stony way opened into a broad 
valley and before us stood the marvel of 
Norway, tha marvel of the world, the church 
of Borgund ! 

Standing as it did in a sunken valley sur- 
rounded by mighty, snow-capped fjclds, our 
first impression was that it was ridiculously 
small. 



154 GU7npses of Norseland. 



Only twenty feet wide and forty long, it 
seemed like a toy, a bit of China, brought 
to the cold North by Aladdin's genii. 

It dates back to the twelfth century, and, 
thanks to the Antiquarian Society of Chris- 
tiania, is one of the best-preserved stave or 
wooden churches in the country. They 
have forbidden for a long time any service 
to be held in it, and have applied to the 
shingles, already dark with age, a coating of 
tar for their preservation. It is built some- 
w^iat like a Chinese pagoda, with six tiers of 
roofs, surmounted by a slender spire ; and 
rows of projecting gables, each smaller than 
the one below it. From the ridges of the 
upper roof rise strange, grotesque ornaments 
resembling horns; devices of entwined 
snakes surmount one door, and above the 



Borgund Church. 155 

other are carved griffins' heads. The sides 
and roofs are covered with long shingles, 
rounded at the point; and everywhere rise 
crosses and spires. Around the exterior is 
a little arcade, with the lower portion closed 
and the upper portion open and supported 
by tiny columns. 

Passing through the arcade one enters the 
dark interior. 

Open to the roof, it is lighted by one 
small window, and only after a close scrutiny 
can one believe that this extraordinary build- 
ing was built on the true cathedral plan ; 
but it has a nave, a chancel, and side aisles, 
and it faces east and west ! 

In one dark corner is a great altar-stone, 
which the antiquarians consider to belong 
to a pagan age, and by its side a curious 



156 Glimpses of Norseland, 

altar-piece, in which two Apostles, with an 
exaggerated, Perugino-like droop to their 
heads, are represented gazing at the cruci- 
fixion. 

Near the church is the quaint bell-tower ; 
and, procuring from the little guide, the 
massive old copper and iron key, we clam- 
bered up the shaking ladder to the belfry 
and rang the old bell, which, more than 
eight hundred years ago, called the peasants 
to prayer and praise. It had no date; pre- 
reformation bells seldom have, but on it was 
the inscription, " Sanctus Laurencius." 

It is a mystery how the idea of anything 
so fantastic as this church could have arisen 
in the mind of a Norseman ! I suppose it 
must have been suggested by a natural re- 
vulsion of feeling against the sharp, severe 



Last View of Borgu7id, 157 

lines and massive scenery that was ever 
before his eyes, for throughout Norway a 
light and chalet style of architecture obtains, 
and one can account for it in no other way. 

As we left Borgund and turned to gaze 
once more at the dark, fantastic edifice, its 
peculiar pointed shingles and their almost 
ebony hue made the roofs look like the 
plumage of some strange bird, while the 
frowning snow-capped fjelds and the ame- 
thystine sky heightened the effect of a pict- 
ure never to be forgotten. 

We hoped to be able to catch the Bergen 
steamer at Aardal, a hamlet at the head of 
Lyster Fjord, and so pushed on, though 
rather wearily. The pleasure of riding had 
not been what we anticipated, for the saddle 
was a cross between the Norwegian and 



158 Glimpses of Norseland, 

English styles, and the combination was 
decidedly uncomfortable. Then the horse 
had evidently never been ridden before, and 
at first absolutely refused to canter; after 
much urging, however, he got into a gait 
somewhat akin to it, but, alas ! it was a hard 
and unpleasant one ! As we sped along the 
road the peasants left their haymaking and 
ran to the borders of the fields, a galloping 
horse being a very uncommon spectacle in 
their moderate lives. 

The women as well as the men are occu- 
pied all the short summer with out-door 
work. In every field we saw their bright 
bodices and the snowy kerchiefs that served 
them for hats. As good a swathe can they 
cut as the men, but their principal work 
seemed to be the hanging of bunches of 



Haymaking. 159 



mown grass on the wire frames that were in 
every field. Here these hang until, by the 
passage of air through them, they become 
perfectly dry, it being impossible to make 
hay in Norway in any other wa3^ Some- 
times, when the summer season is unusually 
cloudy, the grass is kept on the frames till 
autumn, making a picturesque addition to 
the fields, which are mottled with patches of 
different shades of green, as they are usually 
mowed at intervals, a little piece at a time. 
From the tops of some of the hills, long 
wires stretched to the farms below; these 
were used, we were told, for sliding down 
little bundles of hay from places which ani- 
mals and mountaineers only could reach, and 
where there would be only a hand's-breadth 
patch of grass. So precious is every spear ! 



1 60 Glimpses of Norseland. 

Only eight-tenths of one per cent, of the 
surface of Norway is under cultivation, and 
the system of agriculture is very rude. One 
sees in many a field single-handed ploughs, 
reminding him of old Egyptian implements, 
and on some farms the carts have wheels of 
solid wood. 

The Norwegians have little use for the 
larger agricultural implements, as the major- 
ity of the fields are so full of rocks that even 
a scythe is used with difficulty, and during 
the harvest the laborers have to wear soft 
shoes without any soles, in order to accom- 
modate their feet to the inequalities of the 
soil. 

One rather curious custom of storing 
grain obtains in Norway : in various dis- 
tricts are corn magazines, as they are called, 



Public Granaries, i6i 

to which the farmers can send their surplus 
of grain, and from which they can get loans, 
if necessity so demands. 

The borrowers are required to pay twenty- 
five per cent, interest in grain for twelve 
months, while the depositors receive twelve 
per cent, increase in amount for their grain 
in a period of the same length of time. As 
these institutions are not intended for gain, 
but rather for mutual benefit, the differ- 
ence between the loaning and the depositing 
interests pays the necessary expenses of the 
system. 

On and on the magnificent road wound ; 
now flanked by great crags, and now among 
meadows filled with harebells, clover, and 
buttercups- Here and there by the side of 
a brawling stream rose the moss-roofed 



1 62 Glimpses of Norseland. 

grist-mills, with groups of white-haired chil- 
dren playing round their doors. 

As soon as they saw us they would scam- 
per into the houses and return with saucers 
of luscious berries, for which they asked but 
two or three cents, or they would dash on 
ahead of the carriole to open the gates, and 
then stand with their little outstretched 
brown hands waiting for an ore, a little coin 
a quarter of a cent in value ! 

As we approached Maristuen the west was 
golden with the light of the setting sun ; the 
gaunt firs seemed etched against the sky ; 
here and there through openings in the dark- 
ening hills we would catch glimpses of other 
ranges, bathed in shimmering gray and 
purple ; rainbow-like fosses gleamed now 
and then among motionless pines ; the lights 



Approach to Maris (uen. 163 

sunk lower and lower ; the mountains came 
nearer as their shadows stretched blacker 
and farther, and it was in the glimmering 
twilight that we at last reached our destina- 
tion, two thousand six hundred feet above 
the fjord. We were very anxious to push 
on toward Aardal, but although the landlord 
professed to speak English, we could not 
understand him, neither could he under- 
stand us ; and if it had not been for one 
of the Norwegian boarders who understood 
our language, we might have remained in 
ignorance of his cabalistic signs and vehe- 
ment gutturals, but she, with the usual cour- 
tesy of the nation, cleared up the mystery, 
and with a few magical words proved to us 
that it would be impossible to reach Aardal 
in time to make the desired connections. 



1 64 Glimpses of Norseland. 

Nothing was left but to spend the night at 
Maristuen, and how quickly we sank to rest 
under the usual pile of covering only those 
who have taken a ride of forty miles on a 
hard-gaited horse can imagine ! 



CHAPTER IX. 



JOURNEY BACK TO LAERDALSOREN. 




CHAPTER IX. 



The Return — An Amusing Character — Peasants' 
Generosity — A Glimpse of a Boinder Farm — Food 
OF THE Bonder — A Curious Custom —Character- 
istics OF THE Bonder — Church at Laerdalsoren. 



A 



NOT HER fair day and another 
long journey awaited us when on 
the next morning we aw^oke with aching 
backs and bones ; for the saddle was liard 
and the carriole did lack springs, however 
much we tried to disguise it from ourselves. 
It was a long journey, but a most beautiful 
one, in the freshness of the early morn. 
Some of the way was through rocky, 



1 68 Glimpses of Norseland, 

wooded country that reminded us of our 
own White Mountains : great, stony hills, 
lovely green meadows filled with blue pan- 
sies and single-leafed dog-roses, placid pools 
with pond-lilies afloat, tiny farmsteads cud- 
dled into hollows where they might escape 
the wind, and stretches of aromatic firs and 
pines. 

But even while we remarked upon the 
similarity, the road would suddenly enter 
great gorges, flanked by terrible frowning 
mountains, or we would catch glimpses of 
some mighty arm of the sea reaching far 
into the heart of the hills. As we ap- 
proached Borgund a little shower came 
rolling up, blotting out, for a moment, the 
mountains, and then turning them to a dark 
slate color, against which the dripping foli- 



'1 he Far West. 169 



age stood out darkly green. A moment 
more, and before us, stretching its fairy 
bridge from one gray fjeld to another, was a 
gorgeous rainbow, a fit ending 'to the beau- 
tiful scenery we had passed through. 

Our old guide was much interested in 
America, for he, like many other Norwe- 
gians, had relatives and friends there who 
wrote home glowing accounts, so the old 
man said, and no wonder ! What must be 
the sensation of the mountain lad who has 
had to glean among the rocks for his little 
bundle of hay, when he sees the West with 
its vast rolling prairies and extensive fields 
of waving grain ! 

" Ah yes," as one of them said to me, " a 
great country dat where all can have it 
good," And yet, though it is the goal to 



1 70 Glimpses of Norseland, 

many a struggling peasant, the true Norwe- 
gian never forgets his Gamle Norge, nor 
ceases to long for its fjelds and fjords. 

The old driver was an eccentric character 
who took especial pride in the speed of his 
pony and the attention which it attracted. 

He knew all the families on the road, and 
as we passed their habitations, and espe- 
cially those on the slopes of precipitous hills, 
in his evident desire to excite their admira- 
tion he urged on his willing steed at a break- 
neck rate with shouts of " Go lang," which 
was the only English phrase he knew. 

When he reached a statio7t, however, he 
appeared to realize that he had driven too 
fast and would positively refuse to go far^ 
ther until his horse was rested. 

Then we would expostulate with him, say- 



A Draught of Ale. 171 



ing that it was growing late and that we 
could not afford the delay, and finally per- 
suade him to accede to our wishes. 

But at one of the last stations the old 
man became obdurate, and after the usual 
interchange of remarks, he shook his head 
and demanded " Oel '' (beer). We hastened 
to have the beverage brought, and 

''When kindness had his wants supplied, 
And the old man was gratified,'' 

he again became pliable. 

One incident that occurred was a good 
illustration of the universal Norwegian gen- 
erosity: as he stood in the garden sipping 
his ale, a tiny little fellow, all eager eyes and 
blue and white pinafore, hovered about him ; 
soon a benevolent smile lighted the grim 
guide's face, and filling the glass to the 



172 Glmtpses of Norselarid, 

brim, he called the little man and gave it 
to him. 

All through the drive w^e had noticed the 
same kind-heartedness in the man. " Arme 
lille Gut og Pige, so hungrig'' (Poor little 
boy and girl, so hungry), he would say, call- 
ing our attention to the little creatures who 
ran to open the gates, and if one gave them 
some silver his face would beam and his 
eyes shine with approbation. In what other 
country could one see such disinterested 
begging. It was oftentimes more to win 
his approval than out of real pity that we 
made the desired gift. While the horses 
were resting we obtained a glimpse of the 
characteristic farmstead, which during the 
summer months was also the station. 

Its numerous buildings clustered around 



Interior of Farm House. 17 



an open courtyard, and their sodded roofs 
were gay with waving blossoms and emerald 
grasses. Entering the low door of the prin- 
cipal building we found ourselves in the 
kitchen, a low, dark room full of smoke 
from the great open fireplace. The land- 
lady hastened to welcome us, and in little 
prow-shaped beakers offered us some of the 
beer that was brewing in an iron pot over 
the fire. We forced down as much of the 
bitter, nauseous drink as we could, taking at 
the same time a swift survey of the room. 
There were no windows in the kitchen, and 
no light nor air could enter, except through 
the door and chimney. A deal table, a few 
stools, and some rough shelves, on which 
were set the few necessary iron pots and 
pans, comprised the furniture of the room. 



1 74 Glimpses of Norseland, 

In one corner was a barrel of fladbrod 
(flat bread), and there was an odor of cheese 
wafted to us at intervals. 

The fladbrod is made from an unfer- 
mented dough of barley and oatmeal, which 
after being rolled to the thickness of paste- 
board, is baked in an iron plate over a slow 
fire. In every peasant-house there is a pile 
of this sweet, nutritious bread, and it, with 
grod ox \\\\i^\\, and skim-milk, fish, and cheese, 
forms the bd7iders regular diet. From the 
kitchen we entered the living-room, which 
was another low, bare room, brightened 
somewhat, however, by the gay flowers that 
filled its window-sills and the bright em- 
broideries that hung on its smoke-stained 
walls. 

As we conversed about one thing and 



Bedrooms and Lodgers. 175 

another, we naturally sat down upon a bench 
that stood behind a little table. 

We afterwards learned that the bench is 
considered the seat of honor and that no one 
is supposed to take it without being espe- 
cially requested to do so by the hostess. 
Above the lower rooms were two bedrooms 
which also served as clothes-rooms. Here 
were four bunk beds built into the wall and 
filled with loose straw and soiled sheep-skins. 
The young people on these farms often pre- 
fer to sleep, even during the winter, in the 
cowhouse, where, on a platform raised a few 
feet from the floor, they can have movable 
beds, and no wonder! For it would seem to 
be almost impossible to dislodge the pugna- 
cious fleas from these permanent bunks 
where, through years of the best lodging and 



176 Glimpses of Norseland, 

food, they have become thriving colonies. 
Ranged around the rooms were gay wooden 
trunks in which the women of the family 
kept their linen and clothes. 

As soon as a girl arrives at a certain age, 
one of these trunks is given her, and she 
begins to accumulate bedding, gowns, and 
silver, the only articles that these peasants 
care to possess. Across the room above the 
trunks was a long line, on which were hung 
rows of dresses, some of which were per- 
fectly plain, while others had a band of 
velvet or tinsel around the bottom. 

We did not see an article of superfluous 
furniture, nor an attempt at decoration, with 
the exception of the flowers, in the house, 
and yet these people were considered pass- 
ing rich ! 



Fmnily^ Names. 177 



Almost every farm in Norway has a name, 
and the method the peasant uses to preserve 
the family name is very ingenious. 

For instance, if the father's name is Ole 
Nicolaison, the eldest son will be called Ole 
Olson, and all the otlier children will have 
as a surname Olson or Olesdatter ; but the 
^x'^i grandson will be named after his grand- 
father. 

Speaking of the bonder etiquette, the 
landlady said that it is the custom, whenever 
a caller appears, to immediately prepare 
some refreshment in the shape of coffee 
and smorbrod ; the guest in the m:an\vhile 
is supposed to ignore these preparations 
until she sees them approaching completion, 
when she must rise and prepare to take her 
leave ; then the hostess entreats her to 



I j^ Glijnpses of Norselaiid. 

remain, and after a suitable amount of 
urging on one side, and reluctance on the 
other, the guest allows herself to be per- 
suaded. 

In no country in the world, I believe, is 
hospitality more universally practised than 
in the land of the Vikings. 

Every peasant is willing to share his poor 
lodging and scanty food with a wayfarer, 
and the poor are never sent empty-handed 
from his door. 

On account of the difficulty of communi- 
cation in the hill districts the farmer often 
learns to be a jack-of-all-trades, combining 
with his own vocation that of tanner, har- 
ness maker, blacksmith, miller, and carpen- 
ter, and, as he is entirely dependent on his 
own exertions, he acquires an independence 



Halt at Laerdalsoren. 179 

of character which renders him, while cour- 
teous and obhging to all, servile to none. 

For all that he lives in a rude dwellino: 
and clings to the customs of a hundred 
years ago, for all that he is poor and hard- 
working, one can neither despise nor look 
down upon the bonder, for he is self-reliant 
and brave and thoroughly sincere in word 
and act. 

We reached Laerdalsoren about noon, 
and after the midday meal we sallied forth 
to view an old church in which report said 
were preserved the carvings of an ancient 
church at Tonjum. 

We did not know the Norwegian words 
for sexton, carvings, or key, but we were 
never discouraged now by such trifling diffi- 
culties, and so, knocking at the door of the 



i8o Glimpses of Norsela7id. 

nearest house, we made our wants known in 
a succession of substantives with never a 
verb or participle to hold them together. 
The woman whom we addressed, with the 
usual Norwegian courtesy insisted on going 
with us to the sexton s house, and seemed 
much surprised at the coin we gave her. 
The sexton was a queer, shrivelled piece of 
humanity, attired in leather nether garments 
that reached nearly to his chin and be- 
tokened an intimate acquaintance with the 
ubiquitous cod. 

He opened the door of the church with 
a massive key and pointed out to us in a 
dark corner two old carvings, one represent- 
ing the crucifixion, and the other being a 
symbolical altar-piece. 

The figures were stiff and decidedly gro- 



Interior of an Old Church. i8i 

tesque, but the ornamental carving was very 
fine. 

Both the pieces had been painted in 
gaudy colors, but only a line of it here and 
there remained, for these works dated back 
many centuries. The old guide evidently 
wondered at our taste in admiring the carv- 
ings, and led us away as soon as possible to 
a little closet under the altar, where were 
kept the showy silver gilt communion ser- 
vice and the silver box of holy wafers. After 
we had admired the silver and taken some 
of the wafers that he offered us, we went 
back to the carvings to take a last look at 
them. 

The man followed us closely and again 
showed us the communion plate. 

Thinking he wished us to examine it, we 



1 82 Glimpses of Norseland. 

praised its polish and heaviness ; but no, it 
could not be that, for no smile lighted his 
withered face at our praise; then we dis- 
covered that he expected an offering, which 
we gladly made. Leaving the church, we 
entered the grave-yard that surrounded it. 
It was a strangely solemn spot, that little 
Norwegian burial-place, nestled among the 
hills ; and the everlasting mountains, that, 
like intaglios of ice, seemed cut out of the 
blue, offered us a striking commentary 
on the transientness of human life. The 
ground was well filled with the pathetic 
green mounds, and looking at the dates we 
were surprised to find how short a space in- 
tervened between the birth and the death. 
The epitaphs were long and numerous, and 
to one of them our guide pointed with a 



Grave-yard among the Hills. 183 



sad face, while he began a tale in which 
"loving'' and ''loved" occurred constantly. 
It was in vain that we attempted to follow 
him : our knowledge of the language was too 
meagre ; and whether a romance or tragedy 
was connected with that solitary Norwegian 
grave, we shall never know. 

*• Wordless moans the ancient pine; 
Lake and mountain give no sign ; 
Vain to trace this ring of stone ; 
Vain the search of crumbling bones. 
Deepest of all mysteries 
And the saddest, Silence is." 



CHAPTER X. 



THE WEIRD SOGNE FJORD. 



CHAPTER X. 



Down the Sogne Fjord — Comparison of the Hardan- 
GER AND Sogne Fjords — Awe-Inspiring Scenery — 
An Immense Avalanche — Balestrand — Bergen. 

ALL the fjords of Norway are alike/* 
says some one ; '' if you have seen 
one you have seen all/' and it may appear 
so to the unobserving tourist who travels 
merely ''to do" the country; but to the 
true lover of nature the Hardanger and the 
Sogne fjords present entirely different as- 
pects. They are alike in being walled by 
rocky, precipitous, and towering fjelds, rang- 



1 88 Glimpses of Norselaiid. 



ing in height from three to six thousand 
feet, and in having a remarkable depth of 
waters, in some places reaching four thou- 
sand feet ; but here the similarity ends. 

The Hardanger tjord shows Nature's smile, 
while the Sogne seems darkened by her 
frown. 

Everything is bright and beautiful on the 
Hardanger : thrifty, red-tiled hamlets rise 
from stretches of vivid verdure, so vivid 
that it seems almost tropical in hue ; fields 
of golden grain extend far up mountain 
slopes ; thousands of w^aterfalls sparkle and 
dance and dash down well-wooded hills and 
rocky cliffs, and great gray mountains bathe 
their rocky feet in the azure fjord, and 
stretch their snow-hooded heads far up into 
the azure sky. 



Down the Sogne, 189 



The peasants that inhabit the shores of 
the Hardanger wear the brightest and 
prettiest costume in Norway, and though 
they are poor and hard working they always 
seem happy and contented. 

The Sogne fjord is most important as a 
waterway, for it penetrates a hundred miles 
into the heart of the hills, and has many 
lateral branches that open up parts of the 
country that it would otherwise be impos- 
sible to reach. As one sails on its dark 
waters, shadowed by awful crags, he feels 
that he is witnessing the result of some 
mighty convulsion of past ages. Strag- 
gling hamlets on narrow strips of barren 
shore are overhung by ragged hills ; huddles 
of scraggy firs bury their gnarled roots in 
the deep fissures of rent mountains ; foam- 



iQO Glimpses of Norselaitd. 

ing, quivering streams lose themselves among 
piles of tumbled rocks which avalanches 
have brought from the summits of colossal 
peaks ; mighty, sombre mountains, that seem 
like petrified snow-capped waves, stretch 
their granite bleakness toward the strip of 
gloomy sky that looks farther away than 
sky ever looked before, and through fearful 
gorges glitter immense fields of snow and 
hoary glaciers. The scanty population of 
these dark shores have a haggard look on 
their thin, worn faces, — a look as though 
life were one great struggle to them, and a 
struggle in which they have often been 
worsted. 

It was on a gloomy day in the last part 
of July that we left Laerdalsoren and glided 
down this weird fjord to Bergen. 



Wt7d and Desolate Scenery. 191 

There was not a breath of air stirring ; 
the gray water was as smooth as glass, and 
the gray-sailed fishing boats drifted slowly 
by. On the meagre strips of shore were 
nets drying upon poles, or a solitary hut 
under an overhanging rock, looking as 
though it had just crept into shelter. Awe- 
inspiring gorges appeared and disappeared ; 
desolate huddles of houses called hamlets 
slipped by ; sheer black mountains rose and 
sank ; cloud-tipped Gibraltars loomed here 
and there like grim phantoms, shrouding our 
ship in twilight as we passed under them. 

The impressive silence was broken only 
by the scream of a sea-bird and the soft 
lapsing of the waves. So we came to 
Balestrand, where Frithiof was born, and 
the scene of the great Saga was laid. 



192 Glimpses of Norseland. 

If the sky had been blue, this spot would 
have reminded us strongly of Lake Lu- 
cerne, for the fjord here branches out into 
numerous arms, while around it rise well- 
wooded slopes and tiers of blue mountains. 

On one of these arms, the Fjaerland tjord 
(at whose head, by the way, are two very 
large glaciers), there have been a number 
of immense avalanches, and we were told 
that one which descended about twenty years 
ago was of such extraordinary size that it 
bridged the fjord at a place where it was 
four thousand feet wide, and was so firm 
that men and animals used it as a bridge ! 

As we steamed away from Balestrand it 
presented a very festive appearance, for in 
front of each of its modest houses was a 
flagstaff with a bright, floating flag. 



Storm and Sunshifie. 193 

It was probably the birthday of some one in 
the village, for the Norwegians have the pretty 
custom of raising flags on birth ^,ndj'ete days. 

Soon after leaving Balestrand a sudden 
storm came rolling up. The wind moaned 
and whistled ; the fjord was lashed into 
foam ; the gaunt firs bent and writhed in 
the blast ; the mountains were enveloped, 
blotted out by the rain. 

In half an hour the storm had spent its 
force and gone its ways, leaving behind it 
slate-colored hills and dark foliage sparkling 
in the sun's warm rays. Vadheim, in a 
golden hollow, was reached and passed ; 
then the scenery grew softer : billowy mead- 
ows and gay little villages came into view ; 
fishing vessels with high sterns and square 
white sails skimmed over the glittering 



194 Glimpses of Norseland. 

water ; the saffron sun sank farther and 
farther in the west ; the shadows grew 
longer and longer ; hills bathed in purple 
haze threw their black shadows on hills of 
burnished gold ; the clouds above us and 
the clouds below us blushed red in the sun- 
set light ; red and gold were the prismatic 
falls leaping and shooting on every side ; 
and red and gold were the rocky islands 
rising from a sea of pale slate color shot 
through and through with threads of orange 
and saffron ; the quaint-looking warehouses 
with their red-tiled gable ends and sharp 
pointed roofs arose in the distance ; the 
harbor filled with many-hued sails, and the 
ancient city itself, grew more distinct ; and 
so between the storm and the sunset we 
came to Bergen. 



CHAPTER XL 



BY RAIL AND CARRIOLE TO 
LYSEKLOSTER. 



CHAPTER XI. 

Railway Journey to Nisten — Life on the Farms — 
Lysekloster — Hard Life of a Pastor — An Old 
Church — The Ruins — IIarald Haarfagre's Wife — 
Fish Pudding. 



"X "^ T'E had thus far in our journey 
V \ travelled by steamers, carrioles, 
stolkjaerres, and on horseback ; so, when we 
found that it was possible to take a train to 
Nisten, we decided at once to do so, as it 
afforded us a new experience, as well as a 
change from the ever-lagging- steamers. 
We found that the cars or carriacres were 



198 Glimpses of Norselaitd, 

a combination of the American and English 
patterns. 

The passengers entered from platforms at 
the ends of the car, and through the centre 
extended a narrow passage, off of which 
were open compartments. There was no 
special space provided for smokers, but 
tobacco was used freely in every car. 

After passing through stretches of rather 
uninteresting scenery at a very moderate 
speed, we at length came to Nisten, where 
we were very glad to change the heavy 
atmosphere of the car for the pure, balmy, 
outdoor air. It was but a short drive to 
Lysekloster, and our road led through some 
lovely rural landscapes, though we had left 
all the grand scenery of mighty mountains 
and wonderful fjords at Bergen. The air 



Rural Scenery, 199 

was sweet with the odor of pines, and along 
the roadside bloomed dainty, modest flowers, 
among which we recognized the linnea, the 
primrose, and the snowdrop. A silent 
little brook accompanied us a part of the 
way, and finally lost itself in a forest of 
murmuring pines. 

Great fields of heather sent up a faint, 
delicate perfume. 

Magpies in twos and threes flitted hither 
and thither, but we missed the song-birds 
which one might expect in such appropriate 
surroundings. All along the way were com- 
fortable farmhouses, with acres of well -tilled 
land surrounding them. The life on these 
farms is essentially a home life, well pro- 
vided, however, with comforts. The young 
people are taught all the domestic as well 



200 Glimpses of Norselaiid, 

as many intellectual accomplishments. One 
often finds them well versed in the current 
literature of their country, and taking a deep 
interest in affairs of the world. 

The father and mother usually superin- 
tend entirely the bringing up of the children, 
and sometimes even prepare them for the 
higher schools, for, generally speaking, on 
these farms money is not abundant and 
economy must be practised. 

Lysekloster is a large and beautiful estate, 
and takes its name from the ruins of an old 
cloister- that are on its grounds. It is a 
most attractive place, with its comfortable 
white house extending around three sides of 
an open courtyard, and with its gardens full 
of flowers, its roomy stables, and its many 
trig outhouses. The owner of this place 



An Ancient Estate. 201 

was an acquaintance of ours, whose kindly 
hospitality we had enjoyed; and now she 
offered to show us over the older part of 
the house, which dated to the sixteenth cen- 
tury. It was a most quaint and interesting 
place. The tall mantels were of carved 
soapstone and so old that they crumbled at 
the touch. The walls and ceiling were hung 
with cloth, and over the short double beds 
were wooden crowns from which depended 
full, chintz hangings. Out of a handsome 
carved chest in one corner of the low room 
she took a tissue paper parcel and unrolled 
to our admiring eyes the wedding dress of 
her great-great-grandmother. 

It was of stiff green brocade, very rich in 
color, and made with a full round skirt and 
a short-waisted bodice. Two vests went 



202 Glimpses of Norseland. 

with the costume ; one of plaited gold and 
the other of silver. We noticed that the 
waist was very heavy, and on investigation 
found that the long flaps that hung from 
the elbow sleeves were weighted with a 
quantity of shot. The silk was spotless and 
the silver and gold untarnished ; one could 
hardly believe that these articles were over a 
hundred years old ! Leaving the house, we 
took a path leading through a flourishing 
kitchen garden, to the old church. Speak- 
ing of the garden, our friend told us a 
rather interesting fact about barley seed. 
She said that during the long days of 
sunlight that prevailed through the summer 
months the barley grows sometimes two 
inches a day, but if the seed be brought 
from a warmer climate it takes several years 



Rapid Vegetation, 203 

before it becomes acclimated enough to yield 
a good crop. 

Vegetation of all kinds has a remarkably 
rapid growth in this northern land, promoted, 
doubtless, by extra hours of sunlight, and it 
is fortunate that it is so, for sometimes the 
farmer has barely time to gather his harvest, 
before the dark winter is upon him. As 
soon as the snow begins to disappear, the 
flowers commence to spring up, and the blue 
gentians, which in America bloom in the 
autumn, are in Norway among the first of 
the spring flowers. 

We noticed that all the flowers were more 
vivid in hue and more fragrant than ours, 
and that, unlike those of the temperate zone, 
they never closed their petals until they 
dropped in death. 



204 Gil flip ses of Norseland. 

Chatting about these things, we at length 
came to the old church, which our hostess 
unlocked with a massive key. 

The interior was lighted by the usual 
lancet windows, and the altar-piece was 
finely carved with the conventional subjects. 
On the altar stood a tall brass candlestick 
with a great wax taper in it, and the whole 
w^as so heavy that w^e could hardly lift it 
wath both hands. The candle is said to 
be several hundred years old, and it will 
probably last another, for it is only lighted for 
a short time once a year, on Christmas Eve. 

Service is only occasionally held in this 
church ; for in a country so sparsely settled 
as Norway, each hamlet can by no means 
support a separate pastor, and a parish 
usually includes a number of hamlets. 



The Pastor, 205 



The pastor's life is therefore a very hard 
one. There is a fixed schedule for the year, 
giving the dates of services in each place, 
and, rain or shine, the pastor must keep 
his appointments, sometimes arriving at the 
chapel half-frozen by the cold, and some- 
times overcome by the heat. 

The people as a whole have a great vener- 
ation for their minister, and as he is usually 
thoroughly educated, he exerts a most im- 
portant influence on his flock. 

Adjoining the church was a small chapel 
in which were the heavy wooden coffins of 
the ancestors of the family. It seemed fit 
to turn from the resting-place of the dead 
to the ruins of the old Kloster that gave 
the place its name. The monastery was 
founded by the Cisturchian monks in the 



2o6 Glimpses of Norseland, 

year 1156 a.d. ; that is, before either the 
cathedral at SaHsbury or the cathedral at 
York were built. At the time of the 
Reformation these monks were driven from 
Norway and fled to England, taking with 
them all their wealth, with the exception 
of the golden calf, which, tradition says, 
was thrown into the fjord near by. The 
Antiquarian Society had been excavating 
the ruins, and when we approached we saw 
a number of broken columns, coffins, and 
stone utensils lying about. 

One of these last the ladies declared was 
similar in form and material to the mortars 
used by the Norwegians at the present day 
in making the national dish, fish pudding. 
If this was so, these northern monks showed 
that they had as keen an appreciation of the 



Fish Pudding. 207 



good things of this Hfe as their southern 
brethren, for this is certainly a most pala- 
table dish. 

The fish, which is either cod or salmon, 
is first separated from the bones, chopped 
finely, and pounded for some time in a 
stone mortar ; then butter, flour, eggs, milk, 
and spice are added, and the pudding is put 
into a mould and boiled for two hours, when 
it has the consistency and appearance of 
blancmange. Sometimes it is made of both 
salmon and cod arranged in layers, which 
gives it the appearance of a block of ice 
cream. A sauce of lobster or shrimp is 
served with the pudding, and altogether it 
is one of the most appetizing and unique of 
the Norwegian dishes. 

The columns and bits of tiled floor that 



2o8 Glimpses of Xorseland. 

strewed the ground displayed an advanced 
and rich Romanesque style of architecture ; 
and the assembly-room, sacristy, and refec- 
tory, which, together with a covered corridor 
running along the courtyard, had been un- 
covered, w^ere generally identical with the 
corresponding parts of the early English 
monasteries. 

The broken sarcophagi reminded us at 
once of the mummy-cases of Egypt, for 
they were of spherical form at the head, 
widening at the shoulders, and tapering 
toward the feet. In one of these were 
found the remains of an abbot, judging 
from the cloak and mitre ; and here also 
was a leather shoe in a good state of preser- 
vation. This grave must have been several 
hundred years old, yet the leather was pli- 



Harald Haarfagres Wife. 209 

able, and in form did not differ materially 
from the shoe of to-day. Speaking of 
graves, one gentleman remarked that a 
friend of his had been present at the open- 
ing of a grave in which was buried a wife 
of Harald Haarfagre. The body, so he said, 
was in an almost perfect state of preserva- 
tion, and was entirely covered by long, wav- 
ing tresses of light-brown hair. 

After descanting for some time on the 
beauties of the corpse, he finished the tale 
by declaring that the body was so light that 
one could balance it on his hand. 

Although he vouched for the truthfulness 
of the story (and the Norwegian is noted 
for his truthfulness), yet we thought that it 
should be taken cum grano salts. 

The romantic marriage of King Harald, 



2IO Glimpses of Norseland. 

which recurred to our minds at the recital 
of this tale, may be outlined in a few words ; 
and, as it led to the uniting of all of Norway 
into one kingdom, it is most important. 

At the time of Harald's succession to 
the earldom, the kingdom of Norway was 
divided among a number of powerful earls, 
who occupied themselves with plundering 
their neighbors and ravaging the coast of 
Britain. 

The young Harald, soon after his acces- 
sion to his unstable throne, fell in love with 
a beautiful maiden named Gyda, and sent 
his messenger to her, begging her hand in 
marriage. 

But Gyda, as well as being wonderfully 
beautiful, had a very proud spirit, and she 
sent back the messenger with the lofty reply 



Origin of the Kingdom, 211 

that she would not accept a petty prince, 
but would become King Harald's bride 
when he had subdued all the other earldoms 
of Norway. 

This reply gave the needed spur to the 
youth's ambition, and he made a solemn 
vow that he would neither cut nor comb his 
fair hair until he was the sovereign of all 
Norway ; hence his name of Haarfagre, the 
fair-haired. For ten years he lived in battle 
array, and at the end of that time, Norway 
being subjugated, he cut his long hair and 
married his Gyda. 

Tradition does not say whether the ambi- 
tious damsel was happy in her marriage ; but, 
as she shared her queenly honors with num- 
erous other wives, one is rather inclined to 
doubt it. 



2 12 Glimpses of Norselaiid. 



As we left the old ruins and walked down 
the hill toward the landing, the sinking sun 
sent a flood of red and gold light athwart 
the fjord that bathes the shores of Lyse- 
kloster, and the sky, from horizon to horizon, 
streamed with glowing colors. 

Around the doors of the trig dwellings 
that were here and there along the road, sat 
groups of peasants in characteristic costumes. 
The matrons wore gowns of black and white, 
w^hich in this district it is the custom to 
assume after marriage ; and the maidens were 
attired in full white blouses, sleeveless red 
bodices, and dark skirts ; a costume similar 
to that worn by the lassies of the Hardanger 
district. 

Each one bowed and smiled as we passed. 
How surprised some of them would be if 



End' of the Tour, 213 

they were told that in lands which pride 
themselves on their good manners, it is the 
custom to pass a stranger without any 
recognition of his presence. 

It was but a short walk to the waters 
edge where a row-boat awaited us, and so, 
in the bright evening of the eleventh day of 
our journey, we returned to Lyso. 



CHAPTER XII. 
LYSb. 



CHAPTER XII 



A Beautiful Island — An Evening Fete — The Spring 
Dance — The Halling. 

"T" YSO the Isle of Light, as the old 
^-^ monks named it seven hundred years 
ago, was the home of Ole Bull, and is still 
in the possession of his family. It lies some 
sixteen miles south of Bergen in the Bjorne 
Fjord, and is separated from the mainland 
and the delightful Lysekloster valley by the 
narrow waters of the Lyse Fjord. Like 
hundreds of the isles that gem the western 
coast of Norway, Lyso rests on a rocky 



2 1 8 Glimpses of Norseland. 

foundation which rises so perpendicularly 
from the bottom of the deep tjord that 
vessels can approach to its very shores ; but, 
unlike many of these, which are destitute of 
soil and vegetation, its surface, diversified by 
hill and dale, is well-wooded, and possesses 
great natural beauty which has been made 
more attractive and accessible by the artistic 
skill of its proprietor. 

Eighteen miles of shell pathway winding 
in and out of luxuriant shrubbery lead to 
quiet lakes, rocky caves, and charming 
meadow bits, or up through the evergreen 
w^oods to commanding heights. Standing on 
one of these rocky lookouts one obtains a 
fine view of the whole island and its sur- 
roundings. Below stretches the six hundred 
acres of Lyso, part fields of lichen-covered 



An Island Home, 219 

bowlders, part low hills wooded with masses 
of the feathery birch, slender spruce, and 
dark pine, and part great heathery swells 
sweeping into a purple distance. Wonderful 
massings of mosses and grasses and bright 
sun-loving flowers, mosaics of blue and 
white and crimson and gold, glow in field 
and dell ; green curving hollows filled with 
sweet-breathed violets and dainty linnea 
send up a faint, delicious perfume ; and 
every moist nook is green with brake and 
fern, which grow here in almost tropical 
luxuriance. 

On the eastern slope, commanding a view 
of the mainland and the Lyse Fjord, stands 
the hall ; and below, on the strand, rise the 
two or three red- roofed cottages of the 
family servants. The hall is a quaintly 



2 20 Glimpses of Noi^seland. 

picturesque mansion, with a tall tower at one 
of its corners, and in the front a large 
portico with winding stairs, which lead to the 
main entrance of the music-room on the 
second floor. In the rear the hillside is 
thickly wooded with dark firs, making an 
effective background for the pale cream- 
colored house, while in front clumps of rose 
shrubbery, masses of many-hued pansies, and 
tangles of gay, unfamiliar blossoms perfume 
the air, and seem to throb and sparkle in 
the sunshine and soft summer breezes. The 
whole island is like some strange jewel, and 
it has a most fit setting in its own opalescent 
fjord and the Lysekloster valley, which has 
long been noted for its beauty. 

One of the late summer evening fetes 
here, when the peasant neighbors were bid to 



A Summer Fete, 221 

a dance in the hall, was a memorable episode 
in our Norseland sojourn. 

On the appointed day armfuls of ferns 
and brake were brought from the woods of 
the island, and with these the rooms of 
an adjoining building, generally used as a 
kitchen and laundry, were transformed into 
charming sylvan bowers. Down the centre 
of these, long tables were ranged and heaped 
high with the delicacies that the peasants 
like : great piles of twisted white bread (a 
kind of pretzel), heaps of buns, split in 
half and spread thickly with butter and 
sugar, dozens of sweet rusks, dishes of 
smoked beef, pitchers of cream, and bowls 
of loaf sugar. 

Soon after the tables were spread, the 
plashing of oars told of the arrival of the 



22 2 Glimpses of Norsela7id. 

expected guests, and looking toward th6 fjord 
a fleet of row-boats were seen approaching, 
filled with the laddies and lassies of the 
Lysekloster valley ; the violinist with his 
yellow fiddle tucked under his arm, standing 
as erect as a commodore in the bow of the 
leading boat. As they landed at the little 
wharf just below the boat-houses, and came 
in groups of twos and threes up the path 
that leads to the hall, they made a picture 
that was worthy of a Tideman's brush : a long 
vista of shadowed pathway, with glimpses 
of the picturesque cottages, the brown boat- 
houses, and the gleaming fjord at the end ; 
groups of peasants in holiday attire chatting 
and laughing ; the red bodices of the girls 
making splendid bits of coloring against the 
dark masses of trees ; wandering beams of 



The Music Hall, 223 

sunlight touching brightly the smooth flaxen 
tresses of the maidens and the snowy caps 
of the matrons ; and over all a cloudless blue 
sky. 

As they greeted us and entered the music- 
hall, their manners were characterized by a 
quiet self-possession ; but although they were 
undemonstrative and reticent, their eager 
eyes showed a full appreciation of this beau- 
tiful room, which occupies the greater part 
of the second story. Fifty feet long, and 
over twenty in height it extends to the 
pointed roof. Two rows of lofty twisted 
pine columns rise from the white, scoured 
floor, and bear a unique architectural ar- 
rangement of graceful fretted spandrels upon 
their carved capitals connecting them with 
the arched unceiled roof. Persian hangings 



224 Glimpses of NorselancL 

drape the doorways, brilliant Turkish rugs 
are spread upon the floor ; and stained glass 
in the windows, crystal chandeliers, and 
many curious ornaments, give an air of 
Oriental warmth to the whole. A balmy 
odor always pervades this room, for the 
pores of the Norway pine in which it is 
finished have never been filled or stained, 
and still exhale the fragrance of the forest, 
while the long doors and windows give en- 
trance to the pure fresh air laden with the 
perfumes of the wild woods and flowers. 

The chairs and tables were placed along 
the sides of the room, leaving an ample 
space of white floor, most tempting to the 
dancers who eagerly awaited the first strains 
of music. The spillemand's (violinist) instru- 
ment was what is called a peasant's fiddle, 



Peasant's Fiddle. 225 

and was quite different in construction from 
the conventional violin. It had a double 
set of strings, which, of course, gave an 
unusual vibratory tone to its notes ; the 
finger-board and neck appeared much shorter 
than the usual style, the scroll and keys were 
somewhat thicker, and instead of being 
finished in golden or red varnish, this was 
painted gayly in yellow and black. 

There seemed to be no particular melody 
to the tunes that were played, but queer 
minor chords, unusual intervals, and marked 
accents, gave them a weird and not unmusical 
effect. 

The women, after the customary words of 
greeting, seated themselves in a demure 
row along one side of the hall, and the men 
(as in other countries) stood about the 



226 Glimpses of Norselaiid. 

doors until the music commenced, then one 
by one they crossed over, and held out their 
hands to the maidens whom they wished for 
partners. If a girl did not care to dance, 
she would shake her head ; but in accepting, 
she would take the outstretched hand with 
her own. Soon the floor was covered with 
dancers, who made a most picturesque ap- 
pearance with their gay holiday costumes and 
bright faces. Almost all of the women were 
clear-eyed and healthful in appearance, while 
some were decidedly pretty, with their fair 
complexions tinged with pink, their bright 
flaxen tresses, and their eyes as blue as the 
forget-me-not blossoms. 

The national Spring Dance was the favorite 
of the evening, and the peasants displayed 
a grace of movement in its intricate steps 



The Spring Dance, 227 

that one looking at their broad, rather heavy 
figures would have believed hardly possible. 
It was a rapid springing dance, of which the 
characteristic features were hops and twirls ; 
and from watching one couple, who were 
considered the best dancers in the valley, we 
soon learned the steps. 

The girl took her partners hand, and 
following him, with her eyes cast demurely 
down, copied exactly his hops, skips, and 
twirls, then taking three quick steps she 
drew nearer to him, and holding only by 
one finger of his upraised hand, she whirled 
and whirled under it, till one wondered if 
dizziness were an unknown thing among the 
strong-nerved Norwegians. In the whirls 
the dancer executed one-half the circle on 
one heel as a pivot, finishing on the other ; 




THE SPRING DANCE. 



The Hailing, 229 



and as they advanced across the room, some- 
times both whirHng at the same time under 
their clasped hands held high in the air, 
the effect of their heavy shoes marking the 
time on the wooden floor was most rhyth- 
mical. 

After the Spring Dance there was a pause, 
and a tall, agile peasant came slowly forward 
into the middle of the floor ; he was going 
to dance the Hailing. The spillemand played 
a few introductory measures on his fiddle, 
while the performer drew off" his heavy boots, 
then the dance began in earnest. The 
dancer crouched close to the floor, and with 
his legs crossed, hopped slowly around the 
room in time to a crooning melody ; then as 
the music became louder and wilder, he 
swung about, hopped sideways, and stood 



230 Glimpses of Norseland. 

erect while the spectators held their breath, 
expecting some extraordinary feat ; but no, 
it was only a feint; the music returned to 
the weird moaning strain, and the dancer 
resumed his crouching posture, hopping as 
before with crossed legs. But only for a 
moment did he keep this position, and then, 
when no one expected it, he suddenly 
leaped upward and kicked high, high in the 
air. It is said that an expert Hailing dancer 
can kick the beam in the peasants' houses, 
which average nine feet in height; and after 
seeing the agility of this performer we were 
not inclined to doubt it. Several more in- 
volved and difficult gymnastics followed, all 
executed in perfect time with the music, and 
then the dancer left off abruptly, while the 
strange accompaniment died away in a pro- 



Gamle Norge. 231 

longed minor strain. The suppleness and 
agility of the man were astonishing, and as 
he ceased we drew a long breath of admira- 
tion. All the dances that followed these 
two were marked by the same strongly ac- 
cented time, but none were so peculiarly 
interesting and characteristic. ' 

With dancing, chatting, and a delicious 
supper, the hours slipped rapidly by, and it 
was late in the evening before the guests 
took their departure ; so late that even the 
reluctant sun had sunk to rest, and night 
seemed to have folded her purple veil around 
the world. As we stood on the portico in 
the odorous dusk we could hear the faint 
plashing of distant oars, and then, like a 
farewell, softly, faintly across the waters came 
the sweet notes of '' Gamle Norge." 



232 Glimpses of IS/orseland. 

*' Minstrel, awaken the harp from its slumbers, 
Strike for old Norway, the land of the free ; 
High and heroic, in soul-stirring numbers. 
Clime of our fathers, we strike it for thee. 

Old recollections awake our affections. 

Hallow the name of the land of our birth; 

Each heart beats its loudest, each cheek glows its 
proudest, 
For Norway the ancient, the throne of the earth." 



CHAPTER XIII. 



CONCLUSION. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

Norway's Attractions — Facilities for Travelling — 
What to Wear — Norwegian Currency — Advantages 
of the Posting System — Characteristics of the 
Peasants. 

NORWAY ofifers to the true lover of 
nature, great inducements to visit her 
shores ; for in no other part of the civiHzed 
world can one see more easily, and at less 
cost, scenery that is so grand and awe- 
inspiring, and at the same time so strangely 
fascinating. 

Unlike the other European countries far- 



236 Glimpses of Norse! and. 



ther to the south, Norway has no grand 
cathedrals, art galleries, palaces, and theatres, 
to tempt one to spend the winter there ; 
her attractions are immense snow-fields, 
rugged mountains, foaming torrents, weird 
gorges, and wonderful fjords : grand works 
of nature, which; however, are too savage 
and terrible to be viewed during the short 
days of a bleak and arctic winter ! But 
when this wild scenery is illuminated by the 
light of the long summer days, and softened 
by the sunbeams of the midnight sun, it is 
equal, if not superior, to that of any country 
in the world. 

This northern land can dispense with 
costly railroads, leading up steep grades and 
over dangerous trestles, and with the ob- 
servation cars which are necessary in our 



Facilities for Travelling, 237 

own White Mountains, for nature has pro- 
vided, in her network of winding fjords, 
ample facihties for seeing from a steamer s 
deck, some of her grandest and most impos- 
ing creations. 

On these steamers, and at the principal 
hotels, English is usually spoken ; and we 
found that some of the peasants also had a 
considerable knowledge of our language. 
As the upper classes usually speak German, 
and sometimes French, the tourist with a 
slight knowledge of these languages and 
a meagre Norsk vocabulary, gained from a 
phrase-book, can travel through Norway 
without any discomfort. 

Of course along some of the less- 
frequented routes the traveller will not be 
able to obtain the luxuries of modern life ; 



238 Glimpses of Norsela7:d. 



but, when he can obtain a lodging and a 
plenty of plain, wholesome food, with sweet 
milk ad libitum, he surely ought not to 
complain. 

As there is always a question about what 
to wear when one goes to a foreign land, 
judging from our own experience, I should 
say that, for travel in Norway, one needs 
to be warmly clad ; ordinary winter clothing 
not being uncomfortable, although, with the 
necessary waterproofs, we found winter out- 
side garments rather heavy. 

There are ample banking facilities in the 
cities, and the traveller has no trouble in 
getting payments on the letter of credit, 
which all tourists agree is the most con- 
venient, and, at the same time, the most 
secure way, of carrying the funds needed 



Currency. 239 



for the journey. The Norwegian currency 
consists of kroner and ore. The krone is 
valued at twenty-seven cents, and is divided 
into one hundredths, each of which is called 
an ore ; so, in our currency, this latter coin 
would be valued at about a quarter of a 
cent. 

We should consider the ore an almost 
worthless coin ; but the frugal, saving Nor- 
wegian spends them carefully. 

The posting from station to station we 
found to be one of the most delightful 
experiences of our delightful tour ; for it 
aiforded us all the pleasures of a pedestrian 
trip, without the attendant weariness. 

With one's luggage strapped to the back 
of a carriole or stolkjserre, the tourist has a 
feeling of perfect independence ; he can 



240 Glimpses of Norseland, 

walk when he becomes fatigued by driving ; 
whenever a beautiful view appears, he can 
enjoy it as long as he desires ; and, most im- 
portant of all, by this leisurely method of 
travelling, he can become somewhat ac- 
quainted with the simple, open-hearted peo- 
ple, as well as with their often interesting 
customs. 

The Norwegian peasants are not an obse- 
quious, time-serving people, nor do they 
possess the outward politeness of the same 
class in other countries ; but they are 
honest in their dealings, intelligent, and 
kind-hearted, and so patriotic that they 
desire each traveller to carry away with 
him a favorable impression of their Gamle 
Norge. 

The hereditary nobility was abolished in 



Retrospect, 241 



182 1, and Norway is now as much of a 
republic as a kingdom can be. 

Every peasant impressed us with the feel- 
ing that he was a man of equal rights and 
privileges with ourselves ; yet, with all their 
sturdy independence, we never found them in 
the least familiar or presuming. 

Our Journeyings in the land of the 
Vikings are over, we have returned to the 
land of more equal nights and days ; yet we 
have stored in our memory many scenes 
from that grandest page of nature's great 
book : remembrances of winding and glitter- 
ing tjords ; of emerald valleys, and charming 
hamlets ; of glorious waterfalls ; of gigantic 
mountains ; of stupendous glaciers ; and of a 
combination of fjords and fjeld scenery such 
as no other land can equal. 



242 Glimpses of Norseland. 

Remembrances which will prove a source 
of unending pleasure, if the hope of seeing 
it all again, in some shadowy by and by, is 
never fulfilled. 

" I do confess I love Old Norway's bleak, tremen- 
dous hills, 
Where Winter sits and sees the Summer burn 
In valleys deeper than yon cloud is high; 
I love the ocean arms that gleam and foam 
So far within the bosom of the land ; 
It is not that, I do confess to thee, 
I love the frank, brave habit of the folk, 
The heart unspoiled, though fed from ruder time, 
And filled with angry blood/* 

THE END. 



J, G. CUPPLES, PUBLISHER, BOSTON, U.S.A. 




A REMEMBRANCE. 



